Priming The Pump: Inspiring Your Inspiration

 

Introduction

Many artists struggle with their inspiration, or their motivation to get arting at all. Muse-less, directionless, demotivated, uninspired — whatever you want to call it, it plagues many creatives from time to time, sometimes for a long time. Likewise, some artists experience a distinct ebb and flow to their drives, riding high when that drive is revved up but suffering a low when that drive is stalled. And it’s no fun. Indeed, it can be frustrating and maddening, making a creative anxious, even despairing, desperate to get to work but totally lacking the impulsion to move forwards. 

So how do we jolt ourselves into forward motion? How do we transform our desire to work into actual work? How do we dampen our lack of motivation and replace it with pro-active enthusiasm? The answers to that can be as personal as the artist themselves. In fact, many artists tormented by this situation often have their own coping mechanisms born from a lifetime of this private battle. But in an effort to tease out some steps forwards still, let’s talk about some ways we can fire up our inspirations to hopefully get going, or maybe even avoid this downspiral altogether.

Get Creative — With Anything

Start doing anything creative. Beading, crocheting, playing an instrument, gardening, cooking, scrapbooking, calligraphy, mosaics, embroidery, or just tinkering with art materials can do a lot to get our drives primed. And keep it no-pressure fun with no expectations. Just play around, futz and fiddle and putter. The point is to just get creative in any direction, doing something artsy in some measure. And it doesn’t even have to produce anything — you can walk away at any time and throw out whatever you’ve made. Remember, no pressure.

See, a lot of demotivation can come from a pressure from our expectations we place on ourselves with our art. We have these glorious visions in our heads and want to realize them as perfect as they are in our mind’s eye. Yet when they don’t measure up — because the vision is always more perfect in our head that in our hands — some artists find this discrepancy a personal defeat and so become paralyzed with a catastrophic loss of confidence and self-esteem. But if we do something creative with zero expectation — we create something simply for the frivolous joy of creativity — maybe we can short circuit this switch and get our creative gears gearing again. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?

Turn On The Tune-age

Listening to music can be a powerful inspirer of our creative drives. Absolutely, music moves us, gets us jamming to the beat or with the spirit of the song, stirring our emotions and thoughts in powerful directions. In fact, music triggers special parts of the brain accessible no other way. Indeed, marching music can get people with Parkinson’s to walk again and music can get those with dementia to “come back” for a time. It’s even believed in some scientific circles that music came before language, that our brains are naturally more attuned to music than to language, which could explain music’s strong triggering powers. Point is, tune in if you’d like to reinvigorate your Muse. Classical, rock, surf, folk, punk, new age, metal, alternative, world music, reggae, pop, country…whatever trips your trigger, immerse yourself in it and see what happens. And just listen. Again, have no expectations for a no pressure experience. Just sit back and enjoy and let the music take you to those special places in your psyche where only it can take you.

So see if music can stir your mood and spark memories, cause you to make novel associations and connections, and maybe even get your Muse’s interest piqued. Let it calm you and reduce stress and anxiety, creating a more fertile ground for creativity. Also contemplate how certain atmospheres created by music and the beats and rhythms can impact your art and even be infused into your work as colors, tool strokes, compositions, or narratives. 

Studies have also shown that music has a positive impact on creativity, cognitive function, and well-being, also increasing brain activity and learning. In particular, classical music has been shown to have a strong positive impact on productivity, memory retention, and cognitive function, all of which could help your Muse along. In fact, research has also found that music with a faster tempo can get the brain to release dopamine, a brain chemical associated with motivation and gumption. So you never know until you try, right? Pop on those tunes and jam out and let the music take you where it will — I bet at the very least, you have some lovely moments of enriching immersion and meditation, and that usually sets the stage for creative thinking.

Get Back Into The Classroom

Classes and workshops are a tremendous way to get creatively invigorated! The structure of the classroom, the goal-oriented agenda, the learning environment that entices the brain, the experiences with the instructor and the other students, being fascinated by the creations of others, and most of all, the exciting environment that stimulates our curiosity all work together to really get our Muse’s attention. A classroom setting with its built-in support system also boosts our confidence and mojo, making us feel more buoyant and engaged in our creativity. 

There are few things the brain likes more than learning something new, that sense of thrilling discovery and revelation that can be so fun. Learning and happily surprising ourselves can truly become joyful addictions and when we apply them to arting, that combination is a potent brew to feed our starving inspiration. So try a new medium! Learn about a new process or technique! And it doesn’t even have to be related to horses — try a class on any arty subject that gets your attention. The point is to get the brain energized again, your confidence built up once more, and your motivations moving you forwards. Where the brain goes, the body will follow. Likewise, where our interests lead, the rest will follow so chase after what seems terribly interesting and just let the rest fall into place. Give it a whirl! There’s nothing to lose, is there?

Doodle and Sketch

Never underestimate the power of doodling. Undeniably, putzing around creatively can truly be a powerful key to unlocking your artistic drives and getting your creativity fired up. For starters, it can become a window into your subconscious mind and your unconscious artistry. This can let you tap into narratives and ideas you might have not considered before. Doodling is also thought to give certain parts of the brain a rest while gearing up other, more helpful areas related to memory and relaxation. Doodling has also been shown to increase creative thinking and problem-solving in a way that’s free of pressure or expectation, allowing for more creative associations to be made. It’s also been found that doodling helps you process emotions so if you’re feeling depressed, anxious, frustrated, or despairing, even desperate, doodle all that out to gain some moments of catharsis. In this way, doodling can reduce stress much like a coloring book can as it calms the amygdala, the portion of the brain responsible for the fight or flight response which is linked to anxiety and stress. Doodling has also been found to help us learn better. Indeed, studies have found that those students who are doodling during a lecture tend to retain more information and make better sense of complex ideas. Similarly, it’s also thought to reduce distraction and increase innovative thinking, priming the brain for stimulation by keeping it out of a default resting state, primed for action. In this way, doodling can help you Big Picture problems or challenges by stimulating both the conscious and unconscious mind, allowing you to make novel connections otherwise untapped. Most of all though, research has found that doodling can improve your mood, making you happier and more relaxed and decompressed, especially when doodling something you love like a pet, loved one, favorite activity, what have you.

Above all though, to reap the benefits of doodling, don’t worry about making mistakes. Nope. Doodling should be simply that — a moody, hypnotic, rhythmic motion on paper that captures your creative whims. It should also last for only about thirty minutes to reap the most brain benefits. Beyond thirty minutes, it’s been found to have diminishing returns. But put it altogether and it’s thought that doodling can boost your creativity and sharpen your productivity, mood, and, focus and sense of well-being. As such, it can also be a kind of safety value, releasing tension and anxiety, decompressing in a non-threatening way. So grab that sketchbook and doodle away! Indulging your whimsical, frivolous fancies is fun and allows your brain to play around with its ideas in novel new ways, and that almost always leads to sparked creativity! Why not try it?

Along those lines, get back to sketching. Like doodling, doing a bunch of loose, no pressure, exploratory sketches can do a lot for your brain’s relaxation and novel engagement. Sketching can also help you work out problems in your visualizations, helping you to problem-solve pesky areas in your sculpting or painting in a reduced-pressure way. Sketching can also become practice and artistic exercises that refine your Eye and skillset, and that can sometimes get the Muse energized to actually put what you’ve learned to the test. So sketch away, my friend! See where it takes you and how it gets your Sight refined and jazzed to See more and do more. Do that regularly and often the creative doldrums just cannot persist in that fertile environment. Give it a go!

Get Back To The Source

Sometimes our Muse is floundering because it needs a direct infusion of the real deal again, the living animal. Without a doubt, there is no more powerful inspiration than the actual living horse for an equine artist. So get out to horse shows to immerse in horsedom. And we can take our camera to shoot photos that inspire us for whatever reason. In fact, consider taking a field trip or engage in art travel to get back out there. And hey, simply signing up for a trail ride can do wonders to poke that Muse into action. And being around horses again is a thrilling and enchanting sensory overload that can certainly entice our Muse. Like the scent of horses, hay, and tack can stir our memories and our hearts, the sound of horses can sooth our souls, and seeing and touching the living animal in person is a potent medicine for the horse lover’s mind and soul.

Along those lines, if you have friends or family with horses, get out there as well to get up close and personal with them again. And we don’t even have to ride then but simply groom them or sit and sketch them in the pasture, just chillin’ out with them. 

How ever we engage horses once more, the point is to get ourselves involved in the equine experience again. Truly, for the equine artist, the living animal is almost always the ultimate medicine for an ailing inspiration. 

Treasure Hunting

What’s a reference library? Sure, on the surface it’s the reservoir of images we use to create our work. Deep down though, think about what it actually is. What is it really? Well, when you deconstruct it and see it for what it is, it’s really a treasure hunt based on happy discovery, isn’t it? It’s like foraging with a reward system, the reward being that one outstanding image that’s so tremendously useful and insightful or inspiring. So get to foraging! Have a goal in mind, a target, and then set out to find images or articles that hit that target. Just doing this can create an amazing feedback loop of action and reward, of discovery and engagement, that can be highly infectious when it comes to inspiring our artistic drives. We may even come across that one unique image that absolutely gets our inspirations revived and smokin’ along again like a chuggin’ freight train! You just never know what you’ll find out there if you don’t look, right? So surf online. Pore through your horse book library. Study the work of other artists. Above all, leave yourself open to discovery, surprise, and revelation as these are often critical ingredients for riling up our Muse into action.

Board It Up

Similarly, think about constructing an inspiration board, using those references you found as fodder. Absolutely, many artists find this a very handy tool to stay inspired. It can simply be a corkboard to pin all those inspiring images and items onto, amassing them into a collective wad of fascination. In fact, this can become a handy storage depot to keep revisiting when your inspiration needs a recharge, needs just a bit of a boost. And let it evolve as your whimsies dictate. An inspiration board should be exactly that: Pure inspiration that charms your Muse, compelling you into action. Let it inspire novel associations and ideas, let it challenge your sensibilities, let it feed your curiosity, and above all, let it move your emotions in powerful ways. Indeed, our emotional landscape is fertile ground for our Muse to take root and grow — feed it!

That being said though, that’s the trick with inspiration boards, isn’t it? Don’t just gaze at them — do something with them! Let it fire you up into action to drive you forwards into your art, getting you creative again. So don’t stall out after making an inspiration board! Put it to work! Do that, and you might soon find a host of inspirations pop up and want out!

Make It A Habit

For just thirty minutes every day, or even every other day, set aside the time and energy to create some art. You don’t even have to finish it, and in fact, it could just be thirty minutes spent puttering on something. But just get your fingers in that clay or paint again. Make it a hard and fast rule, too, to play around with your art on a regular schedule. The goal is to create a habit, a routine, that’ll start to feel weird if you don’t create for those thirty minutes. Once that happens, tack on another thirty minutes and go from there if you’re feeling it. Just keep it up! Sooner than you think, you’ll have developed a taste for arting again as your pump is better primed for the flow of creativity welled up inside of you. Honestly, sometimes the hardest thing is just “getting out the door,” but once we’re out, it’s a breeze after that! Give it a try — see what just thirty minutes can do for your inspirations!

Take A Rest

Sometimes our inspiration is elusive simply because we’re exhausted. We’re just beaten down and fried by life — it happens. It takes a lot of energy to sustain our inspiration, but if that energy has been depleted by our situation, there’s nothing left over for arting. This is okay — this is normal. This is the nature of stress and compression and the subsequent exhaustion that follows in the wake. 

So consider positive, no-pressure ways to decompress and set aside thirty minutes a day for it, if you can. Have some “me time,” and make that a priority. Like consider reading, sketching, or creating quick maquettes. Watch some movies or TV shows. In fact, rewatching favorite ones on a loop has been shown to be a handy way to depressurize with comforting familiarity. Or just stare out of a window and let your mind wander in daydreaming. Don’t knock daydreaming! It can indeed be a curious way to make freer associations and novel connections as our mind simply wanders where it will in a more restive state.

Also think about possibly getting away from things. For instance, this might be a great time to take that artist retreat trip or travel to that workshop you’ve always wanted to take. There are loads of amazing artist getaways pretty much available everywhere. Or maybe simply take a trip to a dude ranch and take your sketchbook for kicks. Visit a sculpture garden, art gallery, museum, art fairs, or enjoy one of those open studio tours some cities offer. Go to conventions and expos and comicons. Go camping, take a hike, walk along the beach.

Any which way, the point is to pinpoint the area of stress, find ways to mediate it best you can, and tease out conduits that regenerate the precious energy needed to feed your motivations despite it all — and sometimes that looks like just getting away from it all. There’s this, too: Simply having something to look forward to can do tremendous good for your mood and motivations! Indeed, studies have shown that having that Big Thing as a happy anticipation can improve your sense of well-being and engagement almost immediately.

Conclusion

If you notice, all these things depend on one thing: You being pro-active. That’s the prerequisite — you have to make the effort to reclaim your creativity. It’s just highly unlikely that the pump can restart itself without priming. Inspiration has to find you working, not just thinking about it and definitely not sullen and resistant. Inspiration demands action by its very nature — it must be acted upon, right? Well, help that along by being the first one in that relationship to invest in some pro-active initiative.

Arting is good for you — its good for the mind, the heart, and the soul. For an artist to lack inspiration then is like a bike without wheels: You’re just not fulfilling your purpose it seems. You cannot move forwards in your creativity and that blockage feels wrong, deep down. It nags at you I’m sure. Well, doing something pro-active about it can actually feel pretty darned good and that can be a first spark, can’t it? Sometimes all we need to get one foot in front of the other is a little push, right? So recognize the need for you to get back to arting again and invest in yourself just enough to prime that pump of creativity. Believe you me, you and your art are worth the effort!

“Creativity doesn’t wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moment out of ordinary ones.”

— Bruce Garrabrandt

Priming The Pump: Inspiring Your Inspiration

Vision Conniptions: Managing Our Mind's Eye In Art

 

Introduction

Every artist has been there: Sitting, staring at the finished piece…the finished piece that isn’t even close to what we initially envisioned in our mind’s eye. Maybe it fell short in the expectation department, much to our disappointment and frustration. Maybe it ended up taking on a life of its own and morphed into something quite different. Maybe our inspiration petered out midway in the process and we had to switch gears. Maybe our vision was wrong and we had to make ever more extreme corrections, ending up with a very different outcome. Or maybe we just got so caught up in creating it, we veered off track and careened into new territory. Whatever the reason, it happens: Our outcome may not match the vision that inspired us in the first place, through necessity or by accident. 

Now some artists react to this in a negative way, becoming evermore annoyed and disillusioned for deviating off target. It’s understandable though. They have this fixed vision in their heads they aim for, so when they fall short, that’s interpreted as a failure, and in a way, it kinda is. We should be able to hit our mark after a certain level of expertise, yes? And every artist wants to make their visions real in all their purity and perfection, that’s part of the magic, right? So when we end up missing the mark, that can certainly be a source of frustration and self-deprecation.

On the other hand, some artists react positively to this outcome, surrendering themselves to the mystery and uncertainty of the creative process. With a much more nonchalant attitude then, they really don’t care how far they’ve swerved from their inspiring idea as long as they like the outcome. They essentially embrace wabi-sabi, the Japanese acceptance of imperfection, and turn it all into a positive. That’s pretty cool, isn’t it? Really, this is certainly a healthier attitude. However, it also means that if they have to actually hit a mark, are they really all that motivated and disciplined to hit it? There are certainly times when we do have a bullseye to hit, but with this attitude, how much of a compulsion is there to do so? Not much. And that can be a problem, especially for certain situations like contracts, commissions, or even for our growth and progress.

So perhaps the magic is to be found in the middle? Sounds like it: We’re able to hit our marks when needed, but give ourselves some grace with a bit more detachment to better ground us. Wabi-sabi, baby! And in all this, we can adapt immediately to any project because we know what “hill to die on” and which to let go, and so we don’t beat ourselves up for that, either way. Sounds like an all ‘round better situation to me! 

But how do we get there? If we’re in either camp, how do we find this magical middle? So let’s talk about the relationship between our vision and our outcomes, and how we can better manage that synergy for a more positive creative experience. Let’s go!

The Nature Of The Beast

The fact of the matter is — the truth 100% of the time — is that your vision will always be perfect in your head, and so it will always be better than your outcome. Always. Even if you think your outcome is absolutely incredible, the best work you’ve ever done, the ideal, dreamy one in your head is still ten times better. That’s just the way of visions, that’s just their nature. Or said another way, that’s how they’re meant to be. Remember, our visions are meant to inspire us into action, they’re meant to compel us in a very profound and overriding way. They’re supposed to capture our rapt attention, make us obsessive and compelled, and drive us forwards with a singled-minded determination, working past challenges despite the inevitable setbacks. They’re meant to be extraordinarily powerful! Being so, and perhaps most strategically, they’re also meant to push us past the fear of public criticism to make real something that’s never existed before, directly from our hearts and souls. There’s a lot of vulnerability in that so it takes a lot of courage to be creative! Well, our vision being as powerfully inspiring as it is gifts us with the moxie to do just that, doesn’t it? As it should be.

So understand and accept that no matter how hard you try, your outcome will never match your vision — ever. It will always fall short. But that’s okay! That’s normal, that’s human, that’s part of the magic of making art, and that’s what makes art so fascinating and challenging. Indeed, if we were always so self-satisfied with our art, would we really stretch, question, and grow? Probably not so much. It’s in the struggle, it’s in the pursuit of our vision’s perfection, where all the fun stuff happens. So reconcile with that inevitability and embrace the “divine dissatisfaction” that every artist must live with. And in this sense, it’s rather hopeful, isn’t it? Striving towards our vision compounds the meaning of our journey in ways only such a struggle can, and we may derive a lot more satisfaction with any outcome gifted to us framed this way.

Perfectionism

Once we’ve accepted that our vision and our outcome will never truly sync, we can be gentler with ourselves when it comes to perfectionism. Because perfectionism is a trap — a terrible, inevitable trap door with big scary spikes at the bottom of a dark pit. Avoid it at all costs! Be gentle with yourself and give yourself plenty of grace to make mistakes, to take missteps, and to not create above par. We can be our own most cruel critic, can’t we? Well, stop. You should be your own best advocate! Your own best cheerleading team. Because think about what it is you’re doing — you’re creating something that has never existed before, pulling it right out of the mysterious ether! That's pretty impressive! And you’re doing it in perhaps one of the most difficult art forms: Equine realism. The horse rendered realistically has plagued artists for centuries. Even Degas never thought he got the horse right. Stubbs had to dissect horses to even come close to understanding them. They’re so difficult in fact, that even Leonardo da Vinci wanted to be immortalized by his monumental sculpture of a horse, something he considered a seminal achievement to depict well and which would assure his reputation as a world class artist. So give yourself a break, my friend! The mere fact that you end up creating anything halfway good at all is an extraordinary thing! Pat yourself on the back far more often than kicking yourself in the gut! Your art and your vision will thank you for it.

Yet this doesn’t mean to get lazy or cut corners or not strive for quality. Absolutely not. Instead, it merely means to keep that hellbent, blinding, cruel taskmaster drive of perfectionism in perspective. “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence,” said Vince Lombardi. He was absolutely correct. It’s impossible to sculpt or paint a perfect horse — only Nature can do that. Only DNA can sculpt and paint with 100% technical accuracy. We will never ever measure up as fallible human beings. So even in equine realism we’re a Don Quixote chasing our windmills, always doomed to failure. But again — that’s okay, that’s normal and human, and it’s part of the magic of equine realism. Because — yes — we do need a lofty standard to chase, don’t we? It gets us to improve and push ourselves, to challenge ourselves and question things, and that’s always good for our art. It also gives us a baseline so we know when we’re right and when we’re wrong, allowing us to make corrections with greater clarity the more we See. Nature’s perfection also inspires us to dream big which has pushed our entire art form forwards in spectacular ways. So while perfection may be impossible, when we strive for it, we’re going to stretch ever further into our latent potential and become exceptional artists all the same. What a wonderful thing! So in this spirit, hold the perfection of your vision gently, don’t clutch at it so greedily. Let it guide and inform your piece instead rather that exerting undue pressure on your experience to make you miserable. Arting should first and foremost be fun and joyful, not drudgery! If you’re more disillusioned than delighted, you’re doing something wrong.

Authenticity

The perfect power of your vision helps to ensure that you’ll remain true blue to it, too, and despite all the derailing obstacles critique or criticism can throw onto your tracks. Never forget that your vision is depending on you. Out of all space and time, you are your vision’s one and only conduit for manifesting into the world, you are its one pathway for being made real. It is at your mercy and desperate to come through, as pure and as powerful as possible. Honor it by creating it as authentically as you can, as truthfully as feasible, and as purely as possible. Do this, and you’ll find that your work not only takes on a deeper meaning, but your outcomes also tend to be better and more powerful than if you “created by committee.” Your own Voice will deepen and your body of work will gain a lot more authority. Always be true to yourself with your art! Indeed, your vision directly informs your Voice and your Voice directly informs your vision — it’s a splendid synergy that results in glorious, powerful, authentic work when in sync.

But it takes abiding confidence, love, and gumption to create authentically, doesn’t it? Especially when others are telling us to change this, or not do that, or just do this one little thing, or I don’t like it, or yada yada yada. Noise! It’s just noise! And it’s the perfection of our vision’s voice that’s louder than all that noise, isn’t it? Chase that instead and it will always steer you where you need to go.

Plus, when we chase the approval of others, when we seek validation outside of ourselves, we’re going to compromise, even lose our voice. Honestly, when we need external validation to tell us something is good or even finished, we begin to distrust in our own opinions, inspirations, and motivations, we can lose our confidence and guts, and worst of all, we can train our brains to continually think we’re subpar in our abilities, and all together that’s a dangerous place for an artist to be. And because we think we need to create perfectly according to other peoples’ opinions, our tool strokes and creative decisions are no longer our own! Not cool! Instead, the only opinion you need to validate is your own, 100% of the time. The only person you should be focused on pleasing with your art is yourself! Always. So take a step back, focus on the enjoyment and fulfillment creativity provides you, and rediscover how much you actually love it and, ultimately, you’ll come to like your outcomes a lot more as a result.

 

Seeking outside validation also corrals your willingness to explore and express, to chase down your own genuine inspirations rather than catering to the inspirations of others. For instance, you may feel your cherished vision isn’t popular enough, isn’t trending, and so you put it on the back burner indefinitely. Ugh! No no no! If you feel compelled to realize your vision — no matter if it’ll be “popular” or not — do it. Remember, it’s depending on you! If I didn't create work because I thought it wouldn't be popular, I'd have never created Stormwatch! And look what happened with him. You've got to create your visions regardless of anything — it came to you and only you...live it!

Leaning too much on outside validation also dampens your willingness to take creative risks. Honestly, if you’re more concerned about what others will think of your work, you’re less apt to push boundaries, question things, and challenge convention all of which leads to less growth and exploration. What does all that mean? A creative plateau, a lot of anxiety, and less fun in the studio. In a sense then, our vision is our hint to stretch, isn't it? It's our messenger that whispers to us, "Take the risk, challenge yourself, take bigger bites...streeeeeeetch!" Because only by stretching towards its light can we hope to grow as artists and on our own terms. What a shame it would be to miss out on that because we were too concerned about what others think. So darn those torpedoes! Full steam ahead!

But worst of all, fixating on the validation of others will quell your voice and your vision’s power, and that’s never a good thing. When we’re too concerned about what others think and expect of our work, we’re going to paint ourselves into a corner, maybe even not create at all! It can be paralyzing! And it can snuff out so much good stuff waiting for us in our art. Because the universe needs you to create authentically, full bore, all the time. That's your task as an artist, your prime directive, your duty to your vision. So simply focus on seeking your own validation first and foremost — all the time — and the rest will just fall into place. And trust that whatever is truly unimportant will fall away for the noise it is, leaving only the purity of your vision, your intent, and the love imbued in your work.

Because what’s a better measure of success? Chasing after the magic of other artists to always pull up short? Or creating fully with your own magic to be triumphant all the time? Your vision is a manifestation of your own artistic magic — never forget that. And your magic is unique in all the universe, through all space and time. What an amazing thing! So no matter how incredible you think the work of another artist is, you don’t need theirs or anyone else’s magic to make yours any better — yours is perfect and complete and powerful already on its own. It’s a singular force! So trust in it, honor it, amplify it, and create authentically by expressing it to its fullest. Being so, your vision can be a pathway for improving your own confidence and self-esteem because by learning to honor it, you learn to honor yourself, too. And what better measure of success is that? What’s a more authentic expression of ourselves than that? And what greater honor of our vision is that?

So trust in your vision’s powerful perfection, and trust in yourself to express it in an authentic way you can truly end up loving, or at least, really appreciate your earnest effort. Your vision’s perfection may be the brass ring you can never grasp, but seeking to express it as truthfully as you can will make your madcap ride all the more amazing and enriching, and your art all the more authoritative and authentic!

Evolution

There's this, too: Every piece undergoes some degree of evolution away from its vision during the creative process. It's as though the vision was self-actualizing and changing its mind as it designed its new body. Evolutionary changes can be minor or they can be major, and everything in between, but whatever they are, don't fight them so much. They're your vision participating in the creative process, they're part of the conversation between you and your piece. Because more times than not, these little evolutions end up as better outcomes, don't they? Maybe more like happy accidents? Always leave yourself open to the happy accident even if it deviates away from your vision! Yes! Why? Because that was your vision shooting you a gift, a moment of revelation only it can give. So allow your vision to participate in the creative process — stay open to its voice because it can change its mind from time to time, deciding another way is better. Besides, if we fight our vision's direction change, don't we usually find confusion and frustration in its wake? Our vision knows what it wants so if we stay responsive to it, it will steer us where we need to go, where it needs to go, and that almost always ends up as a better outcome.

Gumption To Keep Going

Many artists get stuck in the gap between the “inferior” outcome and the perfection of their vision. Perpetually frustrated, some may even quit arting altogether, thinking that they’re simply not cut out for it. This is a disaster! Don’t let that happen to you! Because the fact of the matter is that there will always be this gap between the outcome and the vision — that’s normal, that’s inevitable, that’s expected. So the trick is to continually hop over that gap to keep creating in spite of it, to leap over that trap to keep moving forwards. 

So rather than letting it stop you, do the opposite: Create more work. A lot of it. Seriously…volume counts! It’s through creating volumes of new work that we learn the fastest because it’s in the doing over and over and over again where we develop, explore, discover, and evolve. So while it’s an easy slide to think that we need to work tirelessly on a single piece to fully realize the perfection of its vision, spinning our wheels and getting nowhere because of it, the truth of the matter that the perfection of our skills comes from finishing a lot of varied new work. 

So when our outcomes don’t measure up to our visions, it’s not because we’re fundamentally incapable, it’s simply because we haven’t created enough work to have learned enough to reduce that gap. That’s all. No biggie. And that’s fixable, right? We got this.

The Middleground

So with all this in mind, how do we find that blessed middleground between obsessively realizing our vision and just letting the chips fall where they may? How can we essentially allow for both at the same time and still improve without driving ourselves nuts? The trick is in surrendering just a bit. That is to say, surrendering just enough to the mystery of your creativity to allow for evolution and mercurial mayhem to happen, but not enough to just throw it all into the wind without a care. Because with equine realism, we do have to care, don’t we? We have a bar to clear, the example of the living animal, right? So we have to care just enough to clear that bar plus a little bit more with each piece to stretch our skills, but still not end up tearing ourselves apart if we pull up short. So what are some strategies we can employ here?

Well, why not pick three goals per piece? What areas of your skillset do you feel need work? What aspects of an inspiration fascinate you most? What goals in your piece are most important to the narrative? And as you get better, you can add more goals. Overall though, this approach helps you to create reachable goals that certainly help you to feel successful realizing your vision more fully.

What’s more, work on more low-key, playful, no-pressure pieces from time to time. In essence, build creative playtime into your schedule. Just have fun! No expectations, no pressure, and no parameters. Be spontaneous, be impulsive, take risks! Experiment, explore, and discover! Like my NaReViMo horses are a classic example of this kind of work. They’re just pure fun without any expectations other than learning and experimentation. And lemme tell ya…they sure are refreshing to create! And in turn, they help me to realize just how close I am actually coming to my visions in my regular work, that I’m not such a failure after all. Pretty sweet.

Similarly, set a minimum bar of mastery rather than a maximum bar. In other words, set the bar at some level you can actually reach with a stretch rather than at something beyond your skillset entirely. As a result, you end up with a piece you’re happy with, maybe even love, but you still know there’s room for improvement. Learn to take bites you can chew rather than choke on those that were way too big. So put those pieces on the backburner for your skills to percolate because your subroutines are already working the problem. Remember that learning is always happening so give yourself the space to learn at your own pace and ease up on the impatience part. Yes, it's nice to be able to bang out a piece with greater ease, but it's also nice to give yourself the grace to be human, too. Those bigger bites will be doable with time, but only if you allow your subroutines to do their work in their own way. Be patient with yourself.

So along those lines, try not to fixate only the outcome, but also on the process. Like let’s say you’ve enjoyed yourself creating a piece and actually improved even just one thing about your skillset with it — that’s a win, right? Then lather, rinse, repeat. Keep things in perspective. The more energy you spend worrying about the outcome, the more likely you won’t even art in the first place! Life is too short for such lopsided priorities! So decide for yourself that today is for the making of art and tomorrow is for its critique — then make a lot of art. Over time, you’ll see incremental improvements as you look back over your earlier works, and that’s a huge inspiration to continue, isn’t it? So learn to enjoy the process, too, and build on that.

Because, indeed, we have expectations of our work, don’t we? Which means we have some milestones we want to achieve in our work, right? So when we cannot meet those milestones, we get frustrated and disillusioned, and think we’re failing our vision. We may fall into self-loathing and may even toy with giving up. However, the problem may not be in our skills, but in our process. In this then, think about breaking things down into smaller steps, into smaller and more chewable bites. Always remember that your expectations are ideals, quests set out before you by your vision. And chasing after them willy nilly isn’t always the best plan — you need a strategy! So break things down into stages you can reach. So instead of “I need to get better at painting,” think instead, “I need to improve my understanding of color theory,” or “I need to improve my brushwork technique,” or “I need to learn how to make my bays pop more,” etc. Really break it down into highly specific terms, right down to the fundamentals if need be. Ultimately then, your focus tends to shift away from the “perfect” outcome and more about doing things to learn how to perfect them. Make this a habit, and you’ll find that you’ll not only improve a lot faster, but you’ll also come a lot closer to your vision’s truth as well.

Now if your frustration is at a limit where you’re thinking of stopping: Don’t stop, just switch gears! Experiment with different mediums, styles, and narratives. Practicing and experimentation and discovery can take you really quite far and also remind you what you enjoy most about arting in the first place. Heck, maybe you’ll find a medium that better clicks with you and you fall in love all over again with arting! So never stop moving forwards, just sidestep if you have to into a new direction. But just keep moving!

On that note, build your confidence with little affirmations, doodling, and other creative “palate cleansers.” For instance, be quicker to pat yourself on the back than tear yourself down. Learn to pay your work compliments so make it habit to also find those areas of a piece you love, and become accustomed to being your own best advocate. So if you hit a wall with your vision and you find yourself unduly self-criticizing again, put the piece down and work on something else for a while, something that’s just fun and wholly enjoyable. Doodling is a great palate cleanser, for instance, as is sketching and making maquettes. Play around with no-pressure creative play in other media or styles, or maybe simply studying the works of other artists to decipher technique can be a curious and productive diversion. The point is, learn to see the good in your work, too, and don't be afraid to take a kind of creative "rest" from time to time to refresh your attitude and perspective. Play is powerful! And it's through play that we can actually find a lot of the treasures we need to continue our quest for progress.

Speaking of which, learn to analyze your own work and creatively problem solve your way through it. You’re going to run into hiccups — that’s inevitable. Every artist has to refine and fix their work as they go. But if your first impulse is to get depressed because you’re disappointed with your piece, that’s something to rethink. Because what you call frustration, I call drive, what you call disillusionment, I interpret as a call to action. What many artists don’t seem to realize is that self-analysis and creative problem solving are as much of the creative process as anything else and they need practice and training, too. So study your art — what areas do you think need improvement? Be very specific! In fact, the more specific you are, the more actionable direction you have. Do you need to beef up your basics or learn whole new skills? Do you need to rethink your techniques entirely or simply tweak some methods here and there? And when it comes to problem-solving your art, here’s where a clinical eye comes into play. So make it a habit to do some artistic exercises to refine your eye and work out problems before you even get to your piece. And think about sketching out your piece first to tease out and solve problems beforehand, to capture that vision just a little bit more before you ever touch clay or pigment. And here's where a photo-editing program can be particularly helpful so you can work out problems in a photo before ever cutting into your piece. You can instantly see if you were right or wrong with your correction in a non-invasive way. Very helpful! But all in all, learning to clinically problem solve your work is a critical skill for any artist, especially in our technically demanding art form. So just remember: Nothing is precious! Everything must serve the cohesive whole in terms of technical realism and composition and design so don't be afraid to make the necessary corrections when needed. And even better, the more advanced you get, the more you tend to avoid mistakes in the first place, making your creative experience easier and more confident with experience and time.

That said though, also learn to be happy with imperfection. At no time is your work ever going to achieve 100% technical accuracy in either the sculptural aspects or painted features. Only Nature can create such authenticity. So work on your piece until you’re happy with it, not until it’s “perfect” which will help you avoid overworking it or driving yourself bananas chasing impossible windmills. Spinning your wheels in your creativity is a surefire way to frustration, confusion, burn out, and quitting. Remember, chase perfection only as far as excellence and no further. Perfection is impossible, but excellence is well within your grasp with a lot of stretching. And never forget that mastery is a moving target and that learning is a life long process. Indeed, Michelangelo said at eighty years old, "At last my apprenticeship is finished, I am ready to begin." Absolutely, you’ll always be reaching for your vision and it’ll always move just out of reach with each forward step you take. It’s just a lofty ideal, the grail, the impossible prize so if you get even halfway close, that’s a big win! Just never stop reaching for it as that's where all your treasures will be found.

Always acknowledge progress no matter how small. Even if you fail, too, isn’t that progressive learning? In order to make progress more accessible and tangible, break your process down into smaller and smaller baby steps. So imagine a ladder with big ol’ gaps between the rungs then compare that to a ladder with small gaps between the rungs — which is easier to climb? Smaller steps towards a goal is simply the smarter tactic and though it may take a bit longer, you’ll absorb and master more along the way. And never underestimate small victories! And never bash yourself for taking a bit longer than others to grapple with a new method or medium. Everyone is different with different learning routes and speeds.

On that note, become an observer of your own art for a while. Pull yourself out of that headspace by adopting more detachment. For instance, “I hate this piece” becomes “I did that part super well and I love it, but maybe I can try xyz here next time,” or “I can see what I was trying to achieve here, but what could I do differently next time to really take it over the top?” Stepping back and viewing your own work with a kinder but clinical eye can spin it in a new perspective that can help you analyze it more fairly. Because when you’re creating your art, you’re putting to work multiple skills at once. For example, you’re applying the skill of logistically creating the art, then you’re applying the skill of observing and comparing your art to your references, then you’re adapting to the evolution of the piece as it manifests, then you’re analyzing your piece as it progresses to make adjustments along the way, and on and on. As you gain experience and savvy with all of this then, your ability to spot mistakes improves, and you can more clearly see how your piece doesn’t sync with your vision more specifically. Now the thing to remember is that this ability to spot your own mistakes that may seem frustrating and debilitating also happens to be the same ability that helps you improve. So it’s a constructive skill and not a destructive one, is it? So instead of thinking, “My art bites and I'm a loser,” think instead, “What isn’t working for me here?”

But perhaps most profound, a point we always seem to forget, is only you know the nature of your original vision before you created the piece. Only you know the truth of it. So when your art doesn’t match your vision, you may tend to become critical of it. Okay. But here’s the thing: No one else can see what was pictured in your mind’s eye so they aren’t drawing that comparison! To them, your piece is far better to their eye than to yours because they’re seeing it for what it is, not how it was supposed to be! In many ways then, is that not a fairer assessment? So while no artist can completely stop comparing their finished piece to their vision of it, try to aim for more detachment, try to see your piece from another viewer’s perspective. That can often provide a more rounded judgment on whether you “failed” or not.

Try to keep your priorities straight insofar as art should be done only for its own sake. It should be created with love and the purity of expression and celebration and connection. In short, it shouldn’t be created as a form of comparison with others. Remember, most artists don’t post their mistakes to their social media or their “bad” pieces either. They only post their successes, right? And they make their processes seem effortless and straight forward with editing, don’t they? But we all know that the artistic journey is often convoluted and arduous and fraught with missteps that need shoving back on track at regular intervals. So don’t compare your work to that of other artists who present a skewed view of their own journeys. Instead, compare your work to your previous pieces so you can see the very real tangible progress you’re actually making. Never forget that practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes progress!

Embrace the “divine dissatisfaction” Martha Graham spoke of so wisely of because it’s an inevitability of the creative journey, of the art life. You cannot escape it so reconcile with it and learn from it. Indeed, be more afraid of the day when you’re 100% content with your work because you may be stuck on a creative plateau or have unknown blindspots riddling your work. On that note, also understand that scientists believe we have a “negative bias” hardwired into our noggins developed in evolution to warn us of threats to our survival. However, it can be a real burden when it comes to arting. Why? Because that negative bias will force us to focus only on the bad things about our work ad nauseam and compel us to overlook all the good things. Indeed, our piece may have dozens upon dozens of wonderful aspects to it, but only that one problem area will stick out to us more obviously than anything else. Argh! So just bear that in mind when you fixate on your errors — what’s a more fair assessment of your work if you stopped focusing on them?

In that spirit then, get back into the classroom! Do some research and experiment and put ideas to the test. Until you really start practicing tangible R&D with goals in mind, you won’t progress towards your potential as quickly as you could be. Just remember your work will never be as perfect as your vision, but you’ll get to a point where it’s good enough — and that’s pretty dang good!

Conclusion

Always remember that if your piece isn’t where you want it to be in comparison to your vision, you have to start somewhere, right? And that is first seeing exactly where the two don’t sync. So your ability to see your errors isn’t such a bad thing, is it? No! It’s the beginning of progress, isn’t it? Of course! Yes, frustration is to be found in the gap between your vision and what your hands actually produce, but the fact of the matter is that gap is exactly what you should understand the most in order to make forward strides. So talk to yourself more like a helpful mentor or teacher, not like a bully who wants you to quit. Be kinder to yourself, a better guide for yourself, a better partner to your vision and your art. You deserve better.

And never forget that if you’re doing it right, you’ll never be truly satisfied with your work. You’ll always want to do better. That will take you where you need to be with your art though not necessarily where you want to be — and that’s okay. The journey can be unpredictable and uncertain at times, that’s part of the adventure! Just be sure not to dwell on outside validation, on being accepted. Conventions are meant to be challenged, especially your own, and evolution is meant to happen. And the thing is, as your art develops, your learning curve will have its ugly stages, too. Yes! There will be times when nothing you touch turns out right, when your vision is so elusive, you wonder why you’re trying at all. This is normal! Every artist has struggled with this at some point in their career! It’s part and parcel of the journey with learning curves. The trick is to remember that when this is happening it’s because your skills are developing and may be developing unevenly as different skills do. So just keep at it and they will sync at some point. But just keep at it! Don’t quit! And don’t think you’re failing your vision. You’re doing better than you think on a journey without end, full of convoluted detours and side quests. Enjoy it for what it is, not what you think it should be to avoid disillusionment.

Focus instead then on baby stepping your way to progress and breaking down your vision into attainable goals. Absolutely, when you create situations that set you up for success rather than failure, you’re not only going to come closer to your vision, but you’ll be happier in your creativity and learn more to boot. In this way you honor your vision and in so doing you honor yourself, too. Because never forget: Your vision is really a manifestation of you, too, of your whimsies, wishes, and dreams. And just as your art is so special, you’re pretty darned special as well! Cherish your vision and you cherish yourself, and what better expression of your vision is that?

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing.

Making your unknown known is the important thing.” 

– Georgia O’Keeffe

Vision Conniptions: Managing Our Mind's Eye In Art