Working through Discouragement

This is a re-post of a blog from 2016, written while I was living in Shanghai and wrestling with issues I encountered while attempting to transition into a full-time artist.  After a re-read, I feel it still holds up well today so I'll put off any edits for now.

Discouragement
There are many facets to being an artist. Art is usually a very private endeavor, created away from the crowds and unveiled upon its completion. It can be difficult to work against discouraging factors when you are your own CEO, owner, manager, etc. There is often no one to tell you what to do

Discouragement: Avoiding Loss of Strength

Strength of character, strength of will, strength of faith…strength gets us through our days, our activities, our workouts, our goals, and better yet if we can “finish strong.” It’s a fairly easy term to toss around. “Stay strong.” “Be strong.” Grant me the strength.” But fatigue will inevitably bring us to our knees - sometimes quite literally. I do a lot of cycling and in the cycling world you know that there will be times when you come up against a loss of strength that will be so daunting and so dark that you will feel that you never want to get back on the bike again. Ever. (or at least until tomorrow). You know that one day you will meet “The Man with the Hammer” (cycling vernacular). As a cyclist I have a training regimen and know my limits well, so I rarely encounter “The Man.” But, as an artist, how do you train so that you make keep your strength, build stamina and endurance, and avoid pitfalls that will lead to fatigue? It’s a difficult question to give one answer that will work for everyone, but here are a few thoughts on the matter that might help you find the answers that fit your situation:

Keep your energy up-take care of yourself!
Just like an athlete, you need fuel to power your physical and mental state. With high-demand physical workouts there are many times that the brain may demand something from the body that it just can’t give. This is fatigue, and it happens at low levels as well (although it sometimes takes a while for us to recognize what is happening). Be sure you are eating a well balanced diet that won’t leave you feeling either lethargic or jittery in the studio. 

Start out the day with some basic calisthenics. If you are spending long days on the studio and don’t have a regular workout built in to your day, scheduling some sort of physical activity is a must. This could be as low key as getting up and “taking yourself for a walk.” Personally, if I’m not cycling on a particular day I will  pull out my interlocking foam squares and use the “SWORKIT” app to guide me through some customized yoga or calisthenics workouts.

Get proactive! Work to anticipate any issues you might encounter the next day or week, including those interruptions you know will come (and who they will come from) - which leads me to…

Establish a daily method of operation. I don’t have every hour of my studio time planned, but I do have a method to my madness. I start each day with music, as the music brings energy for me. I alternate activities between digital (blogging, e-mail, art), music (playing my guitar), physical (taking myself for a walk), and leisure (lunch). Too much time sitting on the stool in front of my easel will fatigue me physically and the painting starts to deteriorate.

Set a daily goal. Sometimes we feel as though we’ve worked in the studio all day and have nothing to show for it.  Set a goal that will be satisfying to you later in the day when you’ve asked yourself what you’ve done. Choose something tangible, such as a 5 min sketch, a recorded melody, a personal record on a Strava segment, or new website section.

Discouragement: Avoiding Loss of Perspective
Believe what you are doing matters. Basing your existence as an artist on others opinions is a recipe for a world without artists. If you believe the world would be better without art, then you shouldn’t be trying to create it. Leave that to the artists. If you ARE an artist, be one. I won’t tell you to be fearless, for that’s a bit unrealistic. But I do believe it will serve you well if you always act like you know what you are doing. You are the artist, you know best (and then quietly seek advice/feedback from those who have demonstrated success in a particular endeavor). Turn to your peers (other artists) for support.

Determine and define your personal why. Why are you doing what you were doing? This is something that no one else can tell you. Why you make art is an entirely personal motivation. It really comes down to developing a confidence about the direction you are moving. Take a few moments to write down some reasons why you create. When I was involved in sales we were told to have two stories, basically the short version and the long one. A thirty second version and a minute - whatever would serve you best in the situations you typically find yourself when you are discussing “what you do” with people. Maybe your short version is ten seconds, and the long version two minutes. A good opener for me is “I am an oil painter. I studied art in Paris and developed my skill at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. I now focus on portraiture with the occasional landscape or cityscape. I really love the medium of oil paint…” That last sentence is really the essence of why I do what I do. I love to create. More specifically I love to paint. If you leave your definition vague you will end up feeling that way, so I try to make it as specific as I can for myself and for others. I want people to connect in some way with what I do. I want to be understood as a person who has a passion (or at least an intense interest) and a specific purpose in this world. When I get past the opening introductions I always hope I can elaborate on how so many adults encourage me in the arts when I was a child, and how I grew up feeling that I had a purpose, a skill, a talent. I was encouraged to embrace those abilities for which I had an aptitude. This is really why I do what I do. Luckily for me I thoroughly enjoy “being an artist.” 

It is not about what others do or say or feel it is about what WE do and say and feel.

Surround yourself with positive and like-minded people. Remember we attract what we are. 

Vision-play to the picture. Without vision people will flounder.


Discouragement: Avoiding Loss of Security
Overcome feelings of vulnerability by developing accountability relationships. Make connections and establish friendships with other artists. This can be extremely difficult for those of us who enjoy working in solitude, but even small connections made through apps such as Museum, or a 30min café meet-up can work wonders for building strength and cultivating ideas. Group shows are also easier to establish which can provide lots of strength to continue our work.

Discouragement: Avoiding Loss of Confidence
An artist is an artist.  We feel it is right and justified to tell children ,"Wow, you are quite an artist." But, we tend to hold our adult selves to different standards. Higher standards, you might say, but I'd argue otherwise.  It is quite possible for a gallery show of children's art to be a far more engaging and rewarding experience than that of a seasoned adult artist. So what is it, at times, that makes us question our legitimacy as artists? Comparison to ourselves and others? Lack of confidence? Sources of strong negativity in our lives? 

Admittedly, we will all have different factors that make us feel we are legitimate artists.  During this past year in Shanghai I have had the opportunity to immerse myself in my art. I set out a plan for re-training myself and I've pretty much stuck to it. I realize now that, for me, no matter the plan it is the work itself that has had the most impact on both my work and my psychological state as a whole. It's the work that brings me happiness. It is the work I quite often fight against, curiously wanting to avoid a difficult task that I know will bring me a greater degree of satisfaction and happiness in the end. Strange, but that's the way of it. I have stacks of portraits and figurative works that I consider ""second tier" work or essentially failures, yet looking at those stacks brings me happiness. It's the work, even if I think it's poor work. 

The first time in my adult life that I remember feeling like a "real" artist was toward the end of my college career. I had, for some time, been known on my college campuses (both) as an artist and praised for many of my works. But something was missing in the elusive equation who's answer would bring me the satisfaction that I was a "real." During my final year I was allowed to  established a small studio in an unused office room at the back of the painting classroom. Upon my graduation I had to clean it out along with all of my supplies in the general classroom. Seeing all of my work collected together and crammed into the bed of my fathers pickup truck had an immensely positive effect on me. It looked like a huge junk heap, but junk or not it was all mine. It was not the individual pieces drawing praise from gallery viewers that mattered most to me, but the piles of junk that had preceded it's making that finally made me feel I had earned the full right to proclaim myself an artist.