Do you ever feel pressure around your art or creativity?
- Pressure to share it
- Pressure to exhibit it
- Pressure to sell it
- Pressure to turn it into prints and products
- Pressure to promote it
- Pressure to be consistent
- Pressure for it to be excellent, all the time
I’ve felt all of these, so I can testify to the fact that sometimes making art can have all the joy sucked out of it in about five seconds. And worse, that those five seconds can result in no art at all, for quite some time. #notcool
Well, I have something to say about that. {Surprise!}
Firstly, all of those things are good, if they are what you want.
Secondly, if they are not what you want,
It’s enough to do it for love.
Just for the love of paint and colour and shapes and playing and making a mess and expressing yourself in a way that feels good to you.
If you don’t want anyone to see it, then no one has to see it.
If you don’t want to drain the will to live out of yourself by trying to get your work into galleries, trying to sell it, trying to spread yourself and your work around online and/or offline, it’s perfectly ok to not do that.
I think the internet has brought us many wonderful gifts – new ways to connect and share, a wealth of learning opportunities, videos of babies and animals doing adorable things.
I also think it can – if we’re not 100% in charge of managing ourselves and our feelings {and let’s face it, most of us are still working on that} – create unnecessary pressure to not just be an absorber of all that, but to contribute to it too, to have our voice heard.
Which is also a wonderful thing, if it’s what you want.
Having been squeezed through the pressure tunnel and come out the other side, I just want to remind you, it’s ok to just make art because you love it, with nothing else attached. I am starting to think it’s the best way to do anything.
Have you felt the pressure to ‘get your work out there’? What’s been your experience? Do you feel it’s enough to do it for love, even if no one ever sees it or you never sell a single painting? Let me know your thoughts!
In the last few months I realized I do not have time to do all that I want (or think I want) to do at the level of excellence I want. I went through a list similar to the “pressures” for music, art and writing. Then I identified what I wanted to spend the most time on and what I love most.
What I want and love most is to create for fun, and share and exhibit. Both on-line and locally. Exhibit (art shows, play music) at a couple of non-profit galleries, with no worries about income. I narrowed all this to one goal of what I want, but has had the most slogging, to record three song theme EP’s at a time for a digital release. I set a daily goal to record/edit/etc. for 15 minutes (or more) a day. I will still write songs, play music, and paint, because it’s enough to do it for the love.
That’s such a good point Andy about not just being able to do everything we want but being able to do it to the standard that feels good to us. I guess there’s really no substitute for identifying our highest values and allowing them to guide us. Great point. Fifteen minutes a day feels very manageable! Thanks for the reminder that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing!
Tara, this hit some wonderful nerves with me, this is so much yes. I’ve recently decided to step back from exhibiting and selling my own work to concentrate of curation projects, because I love curation and actually, I just want to draw again for the love of it. To take that business, marketing aspect away and enjoy creating. I’m not saying that if I was offered an exhibition and I had work that fits I wouldn’t exhibit, but I’m not actively seeking out opportunities.
I am attempting The 100 Day Challenge, but I’m doing it for myself and although I’m not sharing everything I create as part of the challenge I am sharing some. I find that creating like this for myself feeds into my curatorial projects.
Beautiful post 🙂
Erin | CD
Hi Erin, thank you for leaving your thoughts here. I had a look at your website and really like your curation idea – so good too to be able to recognise where your true love/calling lies, and to recalibrate the things you want to do and how you want to do them. Like you I wouldn’t necessarily turn down opportunities that arise, but I’m not out there looking for or creating them. Wishing you the best for your projects!
This is great! I honestly get told (by loved ones who mean well) that if I want to sell more art or get noticed, I should look at what is trending or popular and go toward that style or that I should use nerdy subject matter. (We are all huge sci-fi and anime nerds.) But I don’t usually plan my art, I like drawing simple whimsical ladies on trippy/abstract backgrounds. It’s what I’m good at and it makes me feel good to make. So, it can be disheartening to be told I should change my style or subject matter.
I hear you – that’s definitely ‘what makes sense’, and I’ve heard it often suggested too, but for me at least ‘what makes sense’ and my art are not two things that go together! Besides, as soon as I ‘have’ to do something I find I burningly don’t want to do it. 🙂 I say follow what feels good and expansive, you never know where it may lead. 🙂 Thanks for sharing your thoughts here!
I just wanted to add my very own – BRAVO!!!
Ah thank you Marcie. 🙂 {Meraki!}