I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Friday Flash, I share an epiphany or aha moment from the past week.
This week I began sharing my essay-and-art project Things Men Gave Me. I published an article in my AI newsletter titled Using AI as An Artist’s Assistant, and described how I used ChatGPT to help me with one of the paintings. The article got one like but otherwise no reaction from my small group of subscribers.
It would be easy to feel discouraged, and I do, a bit. I feel worried about sharing what I’m sharing. Is it too personal? Probably. I feel worried that my writing is ponderous and uninteresting. I feel worried that my paintings are amateurish and boring to look at. Maybe the whole idea is stupid.
But I am not worried that I’m wasting my time. I am pretty sure I’m not wasting my time. I am pretty sure I am working on something important, if only to myself.
In the book Art & Fear, author-artists Bayles and Orland write that the myth of the extraordinary artist makes ordinary people working as artists feel like they’re not good enough, or that they should quit. Those artists who do not quit in the face of their own ordinariness “often become perilously self-conscious about their art making.”
That’s where I am today. I feel incredibly self conscious about my artmaking, both the writing and the paintings. I ask myself, “Why are you doing this project, Anne? Why are you producing what might be really bad and embarrassing art? Why are you showing your soul to the world like this?”
I remind myself I am not working for approval or accolades even if I would like to receive those things.
Bayes and Orland write:
[Courting] approval, even that of peers, puts a dangerous amount of power in the hands of the audience. Worse yet, the audience is seldom in a position to grant (or withhold) approval on the one issue that really counts — namely, whether or not you’re making progress in your work. They’re in a good position to comment on how they’re moved (or challenged or entertained) by the finished product, but have little knowledge or interest in your process. Audience comes later. The only pure communication is between you and your work.
I create because I feel I have something to share. The idea for TMGM has been with me for years, and has demanded that I bring it into the world and make it real. In her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, author Elizabeth Gilbert hypothesizes that ideas are floating around, looking for a human collaborator, driven to be made manifest in our world.
It might be helpful for me to review how far I’ve come as an artist in the last year. The first milestone I reached was when I began in June of 2024 to produce work that was authentically mine, not based on tutorials from some other artist or attempts to reproduce other artists’ work. I came up with a repetitive set of steps to use to produce paintings in the style of a painting I had created which garnered praise. I used repetition and working in series to produce a set of paintings that were each different and yet similar to one another in style. That was when my painter’s voice began to emerge.
Those paintings were then paired with digitally modified photos that showed how the paintings surfaced imagery from my memory, captures of skiing experiences in the mountains of Colorado. While the paintings expressed the emergence of my voice as a painter, the overall project Snow Bound which paired paintings and photos showed my emergence as a conceptual artist.
Another step forward I’ve made psychologically is deciding I don’t need more training in order to continue moving forward as an artist. I signed up for painting and drawing at the nearby community college, then decided I have enough skills to keep going, and I can develop them on my own. This was a way to move beyond the winning strategy I’ve always used in the past to succeed in my career: getting more formal education.
Besides that, I’ve shown my work in multiple juried and non-juried shows, sold one artwork, and received an award for another one. I’ve connected with other artists through local art groups, and made good friends. This may be the most important outcome so far, finding a tribe of people to create and celebrate art with.
And, I have not quit making art. I have continued. That is a huge success!
Bayes and Orland offer an operating manual for not quitting, after noting that “those who would make art might well begin by reflecting on the fate of those who preceded them: most who began, quit.”
Their operating manual goes like this:
a. Make friends with others who make art, and share your in-progress work with each other frequently.
b. Learn to think of (a), rather than the Museum of Modern Art, as the destination of your work.
I have done only part of (a), because I don’t generally share my in-progress work with other artists very frequently. Perhaps I need to create some venue for doing so, a monthly art critique group that my friend Kim and I have pondered, or a Discord server for doing so?
I feel much better about my art now that I’ve written this post. I realize that my success lies in continuing, and in doing so in community. I’m going to lean into that.