If you’ve tracked along with me for the first two months of this newsletter, you’ve hopefully picked up on the fact that I like to make things: sometimes with words and sometimes with paper and paint-smeared fingers. I get the most ridiculous amount of giddy joy from creating something that didn’t exist a few minutes or a few hours earlier. It’s not limited to visual art and writing, it could be arranging some flowers in a jar or decorating the mantel for the turn of the season. This childlike joy found in holding up my paper and saying, “look what I made” is something I thank God for all the time.
The love of making things spurred me on to take two online art classes at the same time over the last two weeks. The first class was a yearlong class I’d started back in January and the second was a class that popped up just a few weeks ago and opened for registration. Sure, the idea seemed a little impractical but “It’s only for two weeks,” I told myself. For the first week, the workload seemed manageable.
Yet for some reason the rest of the world did not pause to make room for my art classes. School parent meetings still dared to be on the calendar and the people in my house still required food for sustenance and the tail of Covid wrapped around my ankle and held on tight. By the time I reached the weekend, my brain hurt from all of the art techniques funneling into it and all of the art leaking out of it. I imagined smoke rising from my supplies as I cut, pasted, drew, and painted (maybe a little smoke coming out of my ears as well).
The Shadow
I tried to embrace the temporary insanity by tapping into the childlike joy of the creative process but a different shadow was slowly creeping over my art desk. First, a little context.
In the last few years, a welcoming change has taken place. When I join an art class, rather than finding myself among the least skilled group of students, I’m usually somewhere in the middle (in my opinion, at least). As people start posting their work for the assignments, a small but comforted part of me says, “See, you’re fine. You can hold your own here.”
When my yearlong class began in January, I noticed several particularly strong artists had joined the class since the previous year. It wasn’t as easy to tell myself I could hold my own. As fellow students started posting their work for the class I added two weeks ago, the average level of skill seemed more than above average. As I struggled with my composition and line work, I felt myself falling out of the comfortable middle, down into the beginner group. Between both classes, I felt generally underwhelmed by what I made and the gap widened in my mind between “the good artists” and me.
I’ve easily resonated with the quote “Comparison is the thief of joy” over the years because in my experience, it’s absolutely true in all areas of life. As I scrolled through the art from the other students and examined the number of comments and type of comments on my work compared to the comments on the other students, the gleeful joy of making stuff shrunk smaller and smaller. The shadow of comparison lingered like a thunder cloud over my work area.
Part of me wanted to avoid doing the work to avoid the disappointment that I knew would come when I posted something and received a lackluster response. Part of me wanted to press on and work hard at the assignments, knowing the only way to get better was to keep going.
A couple of thoughts have helped me remain in the chair with a paint marker in my hand:
I need to compare my work against my own body of work, not against the work of others: As I worked through the assignments I learned as much from my mistakes as I did from my successes. My work didn’t surpass the artists I admired in my class, but I could see my skills growing over the two weeks. When I compared up, I could only see the gap. When I compared to myself, I could see the growth. (See Madeleine L’engle quote below.)
I shouldn’t let a handful of people and their opinions determine the worth of my gifts: Thanks to a great podcast episode by Shawn and Maile Smucker on The Stories Between Us, I’ve been reminded recently that there are vast amounts of varying tastes in the world. We don’t all agree on the best book of 2022 or the Best Christmas Movie of All Time. With that truth in mind, Shawn and Maile encouraged: if a handful of people don’t resonate with your work, don’t stop making things. Keep bringing the work to more people until you find the ones who like what you do.
It’s actually good NOT to be “the most talented person in the room”:
“
If you ever find that you're the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room,” says Austin Kleon in his book Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative. You would think it would be an ego boost to surround yourself with people who have less skills or knowledge than you do and maybe that feels good for a short while. But an ego boost is not ultimately what I’m looking for, I want to grow as an artist. In this case, spending two weeks with artists much better than myself and examining their work as they posted has been its own kind of masterclass. I still have so far to go and, yes, it can at times feel discouraging, but it also makes me work harder to close the gap. Not to be like the others, mind you, but for the joy of making excellent work.It’s possible to cheer others on when they are having more success at the moment that I am. Author and teacher Jonathan Rogers said in a recent newsletter, “We too often think of creative work (even unconsciously) as a way of establishing our place in a hierarchy. It makes a big difference when you think of yourself as facing in the same direction as other writers and artists—and not climbing the same ladder.” And from the same newsletter, “If you are trying to do good work, everybody else who is trying to do good work is your ally, not your competitor.” I’ll freely admit that my first response to seeing someone’s success is usually envy and I’m a work in progress when it comes to disposing of the ladder and imagining all artists side by side, on the same team. Picturing the students as fellow allies makes it easier to scroll through work and post positive comments even when crickets chirp around my own work. It also reminds me that I’m not there just for me.
Finding my way through these last two weeks hasn’t been easy. And even as I wrote this newsletter, I stopped multiple times to flip over to the class platform and see if anyone had left a comment on my work. But just a I said last week, I’m trying to quiet the initial fear response (“Will I ever be good enough?) and tap into curiosity (What can I learn today?") instead.
Words to Remember
I made the mistake of thinking that I ‘ought’ not to write because I wasn’t making money, and therefore in the eyes of many people around me I had no business to spend hours every day at the typewriter. I felt a failure not only because my books weren’t being published but because I couldn’t emulate our neighboring New England housewives. I was looking in the wrong mirrors. I still do, and far too often. I catch myself at it, but usually afterwards. If I have not consciously thought, ‘What will the neighbors think?’ I’ve acted as though I had. I’ve looked for an image in someone else’s mirror and so have avoided seeing myself.”
-Madeliene L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet
From the Sketchbook
First Draft: As the two art classes began to collide in my brain, I wrote in my journal, “I have art coming out of my ears.” The next day I decided to sketch out the idea (pictured below). Then I realized I needed to change some things to strengthen the composition and guide the viewer’s eye, so with the wonderful magic of the art tools I’m using this week, I made changes to the areas circled in red.
Second Draft: Darkening the girl on the left and placing the orange behind her helped draw the focus of the viewer’s eye to her, but there was still too much going on. I eliminated a few more things.
The Final Draft: With this process it’s almost impossible to make mistakes. Literally anything you put down can be covered over with another layer. This is where I ended up.
Favorite Finds
Newsletter
My friend Shannon, who is a Spiritual Director, voracious reader, and all around fantastic person, wrote a great post this week on how to think about Lent.
“I personally don’t see Lent as a command, but an invitation. Can I take forty days out of three hundred and sixty-five to listen especially closely? Can I set aside things that distract me, disturb me or anesthetize me? Can I rely on Jesus more heavily during this period of time?”
-from Shannon’s Newsletter, Sanctuary Invitations
A Short Video
This week the On Being Podcast featured an interview with Krista Tippett and Poet Laureate Ada Limón. In addition to the interview, they made a video to illustrate Limón’s poem The Quiet Machine. In the video description there is also a writing prompt to get curious about the quiet in the your own life.
Blessings from the Guest Nest,
-Aimee