I did my first art class for Splatsin last week. How silly of me to question myself and not sleep for two nights over worry I could not do it any more, that my art was not good enough, that no one would get involved with my station. How wrong I was. I, as I age, lose my confidence so easily. Is it an artist thing that we tend not to have confidence in? Why is that and how do we gain the confidence in our art?
I believe that we all deal with self-doubt. That Critical Inner Voice (belonging to someone in our childhood that might have inferred, or said aloud, some critical statement that we allow to plague us yet). I call my Critical Inner Voice, my Evil Inner Voice. I figured out that that critical voice in my head belongs to someone in my past and is no longer relevant. Someone once said to turn that critical voice into Mickey Mouse voice because it is pure fiction now. I remember being so proud of an Easter chick. Mother, who was a teacher, and my teacher for a few months, brought home my chick and my bet friend’s chick. Mine was colored heavy with pencil crayon until it was a brilliant yellow. My girlfriend’s was dainty yellow. Mother asked me why I had to press so hard. Funny how I took that as a negative. I am still a hard color-er. And, in grade seven, I drew a Bambi for art class. The teacher held it up in front of the class and said I got F because I copied it. I hadn’t and I was struck dumb because I knew that I had done a really great job. I still hear their voices when I art, sometimes. My mother eventually became so proud of me and verbalized it often. My Grade seven teacher is long passed. I do not know why we pack around voices that no longer belong in our present, but fight them off, a I do, and do what we do.
We place such high expectations on ourselves and begin that by comparing ourself, or what we do, with others, and then raise the bar. I find, when that critical voice begins on me, I need to get up and walk away from what I am doing. All work we do comes to an ugly stage. If we sit there with it, we think it has no hope. If we walk away and come back, the answer for fixing it comes. Like life, take a break and give it a moment or day or week, to clarify and realize that we are in the process of doing, completing, something.
And… there is something about doing a project that speaks to how we feel about ourselves. If we are no satisfied with what is in our life, then we will not be satisfied with what we are doing. If we do not love ourselves, we will not love what we do. Our rejection pf a project come from our point of view about ourselves. What are we rejecting? What do we need a break from that we are working on and stymied over?
If we fall into disappointment and doubt, it is us who convince ourselves that we are not enough. This stops us from being our best self, doing our best work. Our feelings about self color all we do. I have to remember how successful I was at my career. I remember realizing that I saw God in those little faces every day. I was a great retriever, a great teacher. I loved my life and my students (young and old) and they loved me back. And, oh, yes, I am an artist!
I am looking forward to teaching the next class tonight.
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