Art Making as a Perfectionist
Why my first watercolor painting in five years is a very big deal
I painted today.
I haven’t painted with water color since…
it got too hard to social media-ize being an “artist”.
It got too hard to “keep up”.
It got too hard to “create content”.
It’s been at least five years.
But today?
Today I would be lying if I said I felt anything other than pure joy when I saw a sketch taking shape on the paper, followed by layer and layer and layer of paint which came together to create something of which I was genuinely proud. It felt like a small miracle - this thing which I had convinced myself I can’t do.
The magic of making: it’s such a buzz isn’t it? (Wow… apologies for the accidental bee pun.)
Five years ago, when I turned my back on the mystery and occasional chaos of paint and water, I put down my brushes and picked up an iPad. I taught myself how to make digital art. It was simple and it was cute and, more than anything, it was sustainable. It was something I could do while “keeping up”- creating, posting, commenting, continually feeding the social media machine. But add a pandemic and full-time childcare and even that reduced pressure was taking away my joy. I stopped.
In her book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about how the pressure to pay the bills has the propensity to make the creativity shrivel up and die.
I read it. I understood it. I believed her.
But I wanted to be the exception.
While I was making this painting today, I:
wasn’t having to “depend on it” to have to make money.
did not having the pressure to “have to” post it.
was not thinking “art is the only way I can make a living.”
Five years ago, I would have said that not having all the time to paint was what was getting in my way of making all the things.
No.
I was getting in my own way by telling myself that to be a “real artist” I should only focus on one thing. Even worse was that the “one thing” which was my focus was the marketing of my art instead of its creation.
Blerg. Just thinking about it is exhausting and feels icky.
No wonder I burned out…
It’s perfectionism isn’t it?
That nasty voice that tells us that if we can’t do it “correctly” then we have no business doing it at all.
That voices that pitches up into overwhelm and then boils over into burn out.
Today I am learning about muscles and photographing another artist’s art.
Today I’m planning a business centered on wellness and setting up a website that’s not my own.
Today I’m mothering my son, not with an undercurrent of resentment, but with the knowledge that he’s only around for another ten years.
Today I’m able to make art not despite the fact that I have other responsibilities but because of it.
Today I’m able to make art because I’m not strangling the soul out of it before it even has a chance to breathe.
I don’t have a solution for it quite yet.
I’m not even that great at noticing/ naming it when it’s happening to me.
But my hope is that in sharing I am able to more clearly see the “red flags” so that I will be able to recognize them faster next time,
And also, I’m sharing because if you relate to this in some way there’s a chance you’re somewhere on the Perfectionist Train to Burn Out City1 as well.
Maybe your constant creative companion is the mean voice.
Or maybe you’re in the thick of the overwhelm.
Or perhaps you’re just… done.
This is me holding out my hand and reaching out for yours.
I understand.
I know what it’s like to feel that buzz and not be able to connect to it again. I know what it’s like to feel broken.
Thank you for listening to my story. If you’re willing, I’d love to hear yours.
Anytime I make a reference to a fake train, I always get a mental picture of the Sergeant in the movie Major Payne. “Toot toot!”
You’re welcome for that 90’s throwback goodness.