The brutal truth about my, and possibly your, creative expression
The most obvious component to our art we don't think about that holds the most meaning.
I create to understand.
Everything I write is part of my process of making sense of it all.
I believe that the true gauge of good art is that it can help you express what you are working through.
Art in all its forms, from painting, writing, drawing, making, baking, gardening, etc., helps us work through deep things. We journey out on the page, in the yard or kitchen, to mull over inner things, whether we knew it before we started or not.
But we each have times when the inspiration that drives us disappears for a while. This is my cue to go and listen(I write more about that cue to listen here).
We understand by expressing, aka working through what we have gathered. Then, after a while, we need to go gather again. We get hold of something in our gathering that inspires us to work through our physical understanding of the mentally lived life via a creative act.
I follow Austin Kleon on Substack and followed a link in this post; It was not a request to a video of a talk he did. Watching his video led to this page of notes and ideas, along with the inspiration to make my notes more than simple rows of text in my notebook.
Starting a note suddenly came with the challenge of how to put it on the page. And then, this odd idea, we know, is false that our first attempt at art needs to be the perfect one.. whatever a perfect attempt in art or creative expression is.
Gary Panter tells us:
“You can make all kinds of rules for your art making, but for starting in a sketchbook, you need to jump in and get over the intimidation part — by messing up a few pages, ripping them out if need be. Waste all the pages you want by drawing a tic tac toe schematic or something, painting them black, just doodle. Every drawing will make you a little better. Every little attempt is a step in the direction of drawing becoming a part of your life.”
“Most people (even your favorite artists) don’t like their drawings as much as they want to. Why? Because it is easy to imagine something better. This is only ambition, which is not a bad thing — but if you can accept what you are doing, of course you will progress quicker to a more satisfying level and also accidentally make perfectly charming drawings even if they embarrass you.”
So here is to embracing imperfect art to help us make sense of this nonsensical life and having some cool stuff to show for it.
Do you think you make sense of things through your art?
If you like this idea, here is more about expressing yourself through art in a way that connects you to your story.
I wondered about the meaning of life for a while, and here is my answer to that question.