You Are In Charge Of Your Art
The Anti-Art Class, lesson 1
The Anti-Art Class is a series of posts meant to discuss the topics that I see frequently from artists searching for guidance, but in the form of workshops and classes that aren’t really going to give them the answers they’re looking for. While I think workshops and classes are good for learning techniques, often I see artists asking for deeper guidance, or being fearful of taking steps on their own without the structure and safety of workshops and classes. This series is an exploration of those feelings.
Only you can make the art that you make.
And that art only gets made when you show up to do the work — not inspiration, not a muse, you. Your body, your mind, your hands picking up the materials and your feet standing in front of them, all about to get to work whether they’re ready or not.
Because of that, only you are in charge of your art. No one else can decide for you what makes your art yours. You can seek opinions or guidance, but you must do so carefully — and we’ll talk a lot about that a bit later.
Make and own your art with conviction. This is easier said than done, but faking it ‘til you make it is a legitimate strategy in creative pursuits and over time you’ll have faked confidence and conviction long enough that you won’t even know if you’re still faking it anymore. And the truth is, you don’t need to know if you’re faking it or not. If it’s getting the job done, that’s what matters.
You have to have conviction — even if you’re faking it — because if you don’t, you open yourself up to every neurosis that’s trying to stop you from making your work. Low self-confidence is an open wound into which gets poured every grain of salt: doubt about your work being good enough; doubt about spending time making your work when you feel you should be spending it doing something else; doubt about whether you’re doing it right, doubt about whether people who say they like your work are being truthful.
What is conviction in your art practice?
It’s the belief that making something that only you can make is one of the most important things a human can do. And it’s the belief that the time spent on making your work is not inherently less valuable than time spent on other things.
But don’t confuse conviction for being fearless. Being afraid is a natural part of making something creative, especially if you’ve been taught all of your life that creative pursuits aren’t valued, that you should be doing something that someone who isn’t you has judged is a better use of your time. You will be afraid, and that fear might mask itself as procrastination or self-criticism, because remember that part about creative pursuits not being valued?
Your inner voice will try and convince you that creative pursuits don’t matter enough to warrant feeling fear. So you’ll feel fear, and then you’ll feel silly for feeling fear. And these feelings will conspire to keep you from making your work.
Feel the fear. Feel the silliness from feeling fear. Fake the conviction to sit with the fear and do the work anyway. Because only you can make the work that you make.