"I suck."
"I'm such a bad artist." "Why is this so ugly?!" Sound familiar? I’m writing this for myself just as much as I’m writing this for you. Something I still struggle with from time to time is this feeling of not being in the place that I want to be in as an artist, creatively, or just generally not feeling like a good enough artist because I’m not able to do X, Y, Z yet or whatever other reason I come up with. And then I complete a painting after working on it for days and when I decide it’s finished, or simply when I get bored of it, I sometimes have this habit of “throwing in the towel”, thinking of how much I hate the painting I’ve just created and immediately regretting making all of the decisions I made along the way. And I mean, sure, I can go back once the painting is dry (days later...we're talking oils here), and fix any "mistakes" I've made or change this or that, but fact of the matter is- I still have this unwavering feeling of 'this will amount to nothing better' while I work on it. And that's the problem. So I’ve been teaching myself, ever since I got into this whole business of being an artist back in July 2018, how to look at a piece of art that I’m insecure about and find treasure as oppose to feelings of not being good enough. And to be honest, this feeling I get every now and again of not being good enough definitely stems from some past issues in regards to my childhood and all that jazz so I understand where these insecurities derive from, however, that doesn’t stop me from feeling it in regards to my creative process and that’s something I’ve learned how to tackle. That’s what I want to share with you today. How I tackle those insecurities.
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Let me just explain why I wanted to talk about this. I think it’s very important to not just show others how much you’ve succeeded but to also show any failures along the way because at the end of the day, we’re all just human right? And as much success we may find along our journey, we'll find just as many if not more stories of "failure" (aka lessons) along the way.
I was in a major art funk, especially in regards to my oil pieces, since November 2018. And this time, it didn’t happen out of the blue, something- a lesson- is what set it off. And I say "this time" because there have been plenty of times, as I’m sure it happens to many of us, that I’ve just woken up and was suddenly and completely out of inspiration and enthusiasm to get back to it, but this time wasn't it. So I’ll start from the beginning but I won’t tell you the story in full because I don’t want to bore you with all of the details. Pretty much: I currently reside in Norway, which isn’t the easiest country to become an "established" artist. Now, I’m not going to sugarcoat my experience and make what I’ve learned and have gone through seem like it was easy-peasy and the happiest moments of my life because truth of the matter is that it wasn’t. I want to be very transparent here with this blog and these writings I’m sharing with you because I find honesty to be one of the most important building blocks in a healthy relationship. And yes, if you’ve signed up to my newsletter or check out this blog from time to time, I absolutely consider this a relationship now. |
AuthorMy name is Dianna. I'm an indigenous-Puerto Rican artist currently residing in Norway with my husband, trying to make it as an established artist. ArchivesCategories
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