- or to just look at the pictures*
I moved from London to the city I live in now about three years ago... On arrival, I stashed a few boxes of craft supplies in the guest bedroom. In February this year, I had someone come to stay in my guest bedroom and the boxes were moved (unopened) into the space under my bed where most of them have lived, gathering dust, ever since.
When I was digging around in these boxes yesterday to gather some bits for the texture experiment, I unearthed the book above. I started to alter this book just before I left London, and have not even looked at it since... Three years ago this month!
This is actually not very unusual for me. You might notice (if you were willing and able to observe me for long enough) that I have a horrible way of starting projects and then setting them aside, unfinished, barely started even, for yonks. Usually when I become frustrated with my lack of skill, but not always. I so often feel that I am unable to transform my creative visions into reality because I just don't know the techniques, have the space, the time, the right tools... blah, blah, blah, yawn!
I know that this is feeble. And just an excuse really. A true creative heart does not let these mere details get in the way. There are many, many great self-taught artists out there. I do find it incredibly frustrating sometimes not to have the skills one might have learnt doing art at school or attending art courses - because trial and error is a very time-consuming way of acquiring skills - but I can learn, and if I have to teach myself I can do that too. Can but don't. Why is that?
I feel that I am creative. I have the urge to create. I (mostly) enjoy it when I do create. There's reason and the inspiration to pursue the creative life...
The blogosphere is full of amazing people who have navigated the grail quest successfully and earn a living with their creativity. There are women with undeniable talent but who might have started off by working on a tiny corner of their family's dining table, at night, after working a full-time day job, and then putting their 3 toddlers to bed... I have a big table and no family to worry about feeding 'round it every day and a job that often allows me to reclaim days at a time of overtime hours worked. Days I don't seem to use to play with paint and paper... Or even to attend classes. Classes are expensive but I can afford to teach myself stuff. I have a shelf full of "how to" books... You get the picture, I'm sure.
I won't even approach the territory of starting a business (and not necessarily even an arty one), a creative endeavour of a different kind, but one I also have yet to move beyond the starting-to-explore-it phase. Let's just stick with the doing-the-art-for-fun-and-fulfilment stuff for the moment.
So why do I keep sabotaging or abandoning my creative projects in this way, with excuses that aren't really excuses? In fairness, I sometimes pick these projects up again at a later date (or come across them by mistake while looking to start a new one) but three years (yes, years) later? This is what I should really be frustrated about, surely?! My procrastination skills are world class!!!
I think that what all of the excuses and procrastination mask (and not too convincingly) is a fear that there isn't any real creative talent in me and that, with self-taught skills or otherwise, I can't see something through. Fear of failure is better than actual failure? Belief in potential is better than potential explored and found to be lacking?
Just wondering. I don't know exactly what the answer is. I just recognise the patterns of behaviour in myself. And they drive me dotty. It's annoying. And self-defeating. Self-defeat is surely the worst kind of defeat?
Finding this book reminded me of this.
It also reminded me how distorted my view of what I do achieve can be. The way I remembered this altered book project (my first and last so far) was that I'd had this idea to do an altered book - around the theme of Sea and Sky - but hadn't managed to achieve much except to splash a bit of paint on to a couple of pages. No technique, no skill, so I gave up on it and hid it in a box.
In fact when I look at these pages again, I see that I added texture with a variety of papers and adhesives; painted and used pastels on the surfaces these created; stamped, stencilled and drew on those; collaged more papers, and added 3D elements... I even cut out a small window in readiness for a little starfish that I was planning to stick in (found in the same box) and I protected the words I wanted to keep visible with some clear plastic gel stuff... And although they are very much still beginnings rather than complete pages, they don't look too unpromising for beginnings.
And those things there represent some techniques girl. Unpolished perhaps, but techniques and skills you think you don't have. What's that all about?
Had I been practising these techniques for even the last three years, instead of bemoaning my lack of them, space, time etc. who knows what I might be doing now? And what closer-to-a-complete-than-to-a-just-started masterpiece might this book be?
Mhhmmm...
I moved from London to the city I live in now about three years ago... On arrival, I stashed a few boxes of craft supplies in the guest bedroom. In February this year, I had someone come to stay in my guest bedroom and the boxes were moved (unopened) into the space under my bed where most of them have lived, gathering dust, ever since.
When I was digging around in these boxes yesterday to gather some bits for the texture experiment, I unearthed the book above. I started to alter this book just before I left London, and have not even looked at it since... Three years ago this month!
This is actually not very unusual for me. You might notice (if you were willing and able to observe me for long enough) that I have a horrible way of starting projects and then setting them aside, unfinished, barely started even, for yonks. Usually when I become frustrated with my lack of skill, but not always. I so often feel that I am unable to transform my creative visions into reality because I just don't know the techniques, have the space, the time, the right tools... blah, blah, blah, yawn!
I know that this is feeble. And just an excuse really. A true creative heart does not let these mere details get in the way. There are many, many great self-taught artists out there. I do find it incredibly frustrating sometimes not to have the skills one might have learnt doing art at school or attending art courses - because trial and error is a very time-consuming way of acquiring skills - but I can learn, and if I have to teach myself I can do that too. Can but don't. Why is that?
I feel that I am creative. I have the urge to create. I (mostly) enjoy it when I do create. There's reason and the inspiration to pursue the creative life...
The blogosphere is full of amazing people who have navigated the grail quest successfully and earn a living with their creativity. There are women with undeniable talent but who might have started off by working on a tiny corner of their family's dining table, at night, after working a full-time day job, and then putting their 3 toddlers to bed... I have a big table and no family to worry about feeding 'round it every day and a job that often allows me to reclaim days at a time of overtime hours worked. Days I don't seem to use to play with paint and paper... Or even to attend classes. Classes are expensive but I can afford to teach myself stuff. I have a shelf full of "how to" books... You get the picture, I'm sure.
I won't even approach the territory of starting a business (and not necessarily even an arty one), a creative endeavour of a different kind, but one I also have yet to move beyond the starting-to-explore-it phase. Let's just stick with the doing-the-art-for-fun-and-fulfilment stuff for the moment.
So why do I keep sabotaging or abandoning my creative projects in this way, with excuses that aren't really excuses? In fairness, I sometimes pick these projects up again at a later date (or come across them by mistake while looking to start a new one) but three years (yes, years) later? This is what I should really be frustrated about, surely?! My procrastination skills are world class!!!
I think that what all of the excuses and procrastination mask (and not too convincingly) is a fear that there isn't any real creative talent in me and that, with self-taught skills or otherwise, I can't see something through. Fear of failure is better than actual failure? Belief in potential is better than potential explored and found to be lacking?
Just wondering. I don't know exactly what the answer is. I just recognise the patterns of behaviour in myself. And they drive me dotty. It's annoying. And self-defeating. Self-defeat is surely the worst kind of defeat?
Finding this book reminded me of this.
It also reminded me how distorted my view of what I do achieve can be. The way I remembered this altered book project (my first and last so far) was that I'd had this idea to do an altered book - around the theme of Sea and Sky - but hadn't managed to achieve much except to splash a bit of paint on to a couple of pages. No technique, no skill, so I gave up on it and hid it in a box.
In fact when I look at these pages again, I see that I added texture with a variety of papers and adhesives; painted and used pastels on the surfaces these created; stamped, stencilled and drew on those; collaged more papers, and added 3D elements... I even cut out a small window in readiness for a little starfish that I was planning to stick in (found in the same box) and I protected the words I wanted to keep visible with some clear plastic gel stuff... And although they are very much still beginnings rather than complete pages, they don't look too unpromising for beginnings.
And those things there represent some techniques girl. Unpolished perhaps, but techniques and skills you think you don't have. What's that all about?
Had I been practising these techniques for even the last three years, instead of bemoaning my lack of them, space, time etc. who knows what I might be doing now? And what closer-to-a-complete-than-to-a-just-started masterpiece might this book be?
Mhhmmm...
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4 comments:
Oh, Kendalee, I understand this very well - I have a very similar problem! (Actually, I used to think it was a problem, now I've just accepted that it is part of my personality - a part that I cannot really control - if I could, I would have, I think.) I think that part of the 'problem' for me is the amazing amount of choice we have. And so much inspirational input from books, Internet, and the media ... I see so many things, and I want to do it ALL!! So for example I currently have a half-finished painting, two half-finished journals, two poems discarded before properly finished, three chapters of a thriller, a quarter of a radio play, three new piano pieces (purchased, and only half practised), an accordion half-learnt ... all these creative projects waiting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But way before I finish, my attention latches onto the next thing I would really, really like to do! And off I go again pursuing a different project. It is persistence that I lack. I lack the willingness to, at the expense of other things, engage totally and all-consumingly in one thibg only. I am what is called a dilettante, a dabbler. I have made peace with that. (But I plan to be different in my next life ...)
I meant to say ' thing' of course. Because I really don't know what a 'thibg' is ...
You're much too hard on yourself. It's all relative. I look at your creation and see a work of art 'cause I can't even draw a stick man - that's not to say it's only better than a stick man drawing though. Try and think of your work from a non-artistic person's point of view and then you'll realise how good your work really is. The vast majority of people out there don't have half your talent! xoxo
anairam - thank you! I do find it reassuring that there are others out there that experience this sort of feeling too so I really appreciate you sharing your list of unfinished thibgs and thoughts! I do feel that there's room in the world for people like us - and if we'd lived in the Renaissance we'd have been admired for our eclectic pursuits perhaps? And although I get frustrated, I'm not absolutely sure I'd really relinquish the multitude of thibgs that capture my interest (even if only for a while) to focus in on just one or two exclusively and in detail. Perhaps I just need to find the way to best expresses my love of many thibgs in my life and that the lesson I am needing to learn is not focus and staying power but acceptance? Making peace with it sounds like a great idea! :)
bruce - you are lovely, thank you! Your comments did give me pause. And you are so right to remind me of this relativity thing. I often tell other people that there is little point or value in comparing oneself to others because there is always a scale that you will only be at some point along the length of, with people to either side. I do forget to apply this "wisdom" to myself sometimes. ;) Thanks for the caring and well expressed reality check! xoxo
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