On Believing in Your Work
Hey Stranger!
Long time no see, I have been incredibly busy with making my thesis works but they’re done, so here I am, updating my website and putting my thought soup to good use. I wanted to discuss something I feel is important to making: radically believing in yourself.
When I say radically, I mean that no matter what life events happen to you, you will always come home to your easel, or your materials; however that looks to you or however long that it takes you. You will always express yourself no matter the condition of reality you are in. No matter how embarrassing it is. Even if you don’t make a cent or you don’t show anybody, you radically believe in your calling to create. But let me back up a bit and talk about my own perspective in my work, because this belief did not come easy.
I have always created as long as I can remember, even when I became very insecure about what I was making or didn’t show anybody. I was still making whatever I could. Even if I didn’t make anything for a year, the prodigal kid comes back to the easel and makes work. My years early in art school when I became very insecure about showing my art and sensitive to critiques, I would still go in again and again and again. The amount of times in my undergrad where I would cry after a critique, and then go back in the next day to do my work…..more than I can count. I’ve had things said to me that would make people quit. I feel almost that people expected me to quit. I do not think there is shame in quitting, but I am not that kind of person. I am stubborn, and that can be to my advantage or to my detriment.
I have a primal need to express myself, I feel it somatically, I think about new ideas constantly. For artists, making is a necessity to our wellbeing. It doesn’t have to be “good” it just has to be made to satiate that need to express your internal world. Heeding that need, eventually brings you to actually believing in what you make.
I look back to moments where I was in a period of stagnation and those times always make me so depressed because there is no new goal. Painting, even when it is pissing me off or I’m having a bad session, I am having a good time, because I am making something and working towards a goal. Those periods of making nothing are still necessary, because rest is a necessity as well. I am no robot. It’s ok to give in to burnout. In my experience, you must fall apart, to be able to fall back together. That’s something I repeat to myself a lot.
There was a period of my life where I created nothing for years, I had dropped out of art school, I blamed motivation, but really it was fear and myself getting into my own way. Locking this need to express myself away and slipping further and further into apathy and cynicism toward myself and the world, reader, that made me want to not exist at all.
Eventually, something traumatic happened in my life that woke that feeling back up and it had built up so much over time that it felt physically painful not creating. It became my lifeline and I had shoved it away and ultimately ruined my own life by not listening to it. I had to acknowledge how neglecting my own needs is how I participate in my own suffering and brought me to that low (and that’s something we have to put in work and practice too!). So I started painting again, the work wasn’t “good” it wasn’t supposed to be! And then reader, I began taking risks. I applied back to art school across the country and before getting accepted, I uprooted my life and moved to the city I live in now, with no other game plan. Clearly, I did believe in my work subconsciously….but it was not conscious just yet. It just showed up for me as: “If I do not create and work for this, I will die.” Maybe to some people that is dramatic but when I talk with other professional artists, they agree and have similar experiences where there is no “go major in something in college where you’ll make money and THEN make art with that money” it was “If you do not start making something, you will die.” So I began building my life around ensuring I would always make.
It has been an uphill battle, I always subconsciously believed that I am supposed to paint, but I did not actually believe in my work and like it and obsess over it until recently with my thesis. This work I’m doing is after years and years of skill building, studying and actively practicing art. Now that I have these, I have begun finding my visual language and I can say with my whole chest: I love my work. I regret nothing that has brought to this place. Nothing at all.
Not everyone has access to going across the country and going to art school. I believe in working with what you’ve got. Nonartists think going for an MFA in this current state of the world is a terrible idea but it’s because they base college off of whether or not you make money. I did not go into this field blindly. Being an artist with student loans is hard, there’s not a shit ton of benefits. It can deter people. But for me, again this is my lifeline. It’s not really about money at all for me. I could become successful or not make a cent, I just want to tell my stories. For me, that means if I work multiple terrible jobs, as long as I have a designated space to make my work, I’m set. Would I get depressed at my jobs? Possibly! But I’m also aware that after I graduate, I am not starting from scratch, I have an abundance of niche skills and it is my hope that the best case scenario, I’m looking for inspiration to work in the monotonous hours.
Most likely it won’t be that simple, but I am willing to go the distance, because I believe in my work.
Sometimes horrible things happen and make you stop in your tracks and realize that not making decisions or taking risks for yourself or DOING something for yourself is killing you inside and you have to change. Life is not like Life is Strange, where you have two decisions prompted at you, it’s more like an open world game and you can do whatever you want. I stopped pretending like I couldn’t ask for help or do anything to change, and I started being not only an active participant in my life, but someone who is chasing after goals they think about obsessively. And one thing I’ve learned over the years is if you don’t start taking risks and making your goals bite sized, your dreams will stay dreams and never be a conscious experience that you have. Reader, that is depressing to me.
So no matter the state of the world or my life, I am committed to making my stories about all the experiences I have in this life. Art is archival, make something about your life. Live it and then tell the world about it. Choosing this path of thinking is not easy to practice, I expect there to be points in my future where I nearly give up, or maybe I do and eventually come back to creating and exploring in new capacities. I hope that whatever losses that may come, as losses past, I make work about them. That’s all I want, to connect with people and allow my memories, experiences, griefs, joy to be felt by other people. Creating work also provides space for me to feel everything I do and understand myself better. Making puts me in a state of mind where I don’t run from my feelings, I stay curious about them, and approach them without shame.
Make shitty art, fail a shit ton of times, quit, fuck up your life and relationships, lose yourself, and then keep going and keep making art! There is no easy way. Not to end this on a super ominous sentiment but…
