From the originality of an idea, the actualization of that idea, or the fear of a lack of skill to make the idea in your head a reality, art is a scary beast. For many creators though, the most intimidating part of any art making is being faced with a blank canvas.
The perfection of the page, blank, empty, and waiting, has intimidated me for years.
Always plaguing my thoughts with the notions of my own inadequacy, or the fear that my hands cannot translate the thought in my head to a creation on the page. Or, worse yet, what you make fills you with embarrassment and shame.
It’s enough to make a person just not want to mar the beautiful face of the paper.
But as a creator, it is inevitable that the perfect face of the page will eventually hold the thoughts and fears of the artist.
Every artist at some point, whether they write, draw, paint, sing, dance, sculpt, or throw, has had to face a project they were not proud of, and recognize that they still have more learning and more work to do.
But what can an artist do when their creations keep ending up falling short of the artist’s ambitions?
This is not an easy question to answer, and this problem alone has had artist’s abandon ideas and projects, or have turned many away from art making all together. I wish I could say I have the solution to this problem, but unfortunately, I am also an artist who has had far more shortcomings than successes.
Instead of a solution, I do have some advice from one artist to another: just make more art.
While this advice seems far down the “easier said than done” road, let me explain for a moment. A goal every artist should carry in the back of their minds when working, is “what am I learning from this?”
This ambiguous question should be present whenever you flex your creative muscles because what is art making besides an exercise for mind and hands?
And every time you exercise, the muscle you work gets stronger.
Every time a piece of art falls short of its artist’s ambitions, it is the responsibility of the artist to note what it was they had learned from the process, and then do the process again with that thought in mind.
When you remake a piece of art over and over again, it will begin to feel more familiar, previous points of creative contingency will begin to make sense, and the things that used to slow you down start to happen faster, until you find the next hang up, and that will be the next lesson in your art.
