As dedicated artists, we endeavor to create our very best work each time we dive in, don’t we? We try so hard and invest so much of our heart and soul into each piece we create. But what if one of the biggest impediments to our work wasn’t our perceived lack of skill or talent, but an issue with something a little trickier? Like our artistic awareness? What is artistic awareness? It’s that learned ability to bring unconscious habits progressively into our conscious creative efforts. What does that mean? In practice, it’s about actively trying to root out our blindspots and plateaus by regularly taking stock in our philosophies, habits, Seeing, and skills then revising as necessary. It’s an active challenge to those notions we lean on, especially the unconscious ones, a regular questioning of what we’re doing and why. When we do this, we can make progressively more effective creative decisions that increases not just the realism and detail in our work, but potentially our enjoyment in what we’re doing by making things more of a curious adventure.
Because here’s the thing, it’s incredibly easy to get stuck in a force of habit, a formula, a way of doing things that’s familiar and easy to us when it comes to something as difficult as equine realism. This is such a tough art form, it’s surely tempting to find a crutch wherever we can get it. The problem though is that these crutches are linked to our blindspots which lead to plateaus which ultimately stall our progress. Indeed, if we have goals that we’re regularly not reaching, it’s probably because of this problem, not a lack of talent or skill or discipline. This is because it’s our blindspots and plateaus that have more power in our work than our strengths. That may seem like a bit of a Catch-22…and it kinda is…but this realization does put us on a sure path because if we remain cognizant of our creative choices by regularly taking stock in our philosophies and skills, we can fuel-inject our progress. That’s to say, when we understand that blindspots operate right under our noses all the time, to introduce biases, errors, and a grip on obsolete ideas, we have a better shot at rooting them out to make some real progress. There’s a big difference between an unconscious skew and a deliberate decision so making more of our job about the latter, we gain the power to take our work in any direction we want. In this sense then, artistic awareness lets us "self–educate" ourselves in a continued, open–minded, and unafraid way to better See and target those aspects that need attention with greater precision. To brass tacks it then, it’s really this ability that’s the hallmark of an advanced artist. It’s not necessarily the quality of work that's the giveaway, but the ability to consciously create and troubleshoot that demonstrates their prowess. It’s more about expert insight gifted by more deliberate decisions rather than running ramshot in the dark. In a nutshell then, artistic awareness is all about empowerment, the power to gain real and substantial control over our creative decisions.
Your chances of creating deeply hinge on the quality of your awareness state.
— Eric Maisel
But even more than that, artistic awareness is also about understanding that we’re fallible human beings who’ll make mistakes — and that’s okay. When we can reconcile this, we open the door to not only a lot more objectivity, but also much more inflected kindness, something deeply important in this relentless taskmaster of an art form.
Perhaps then the biggest favor we can do ourselves is learning how to remain a "damp sponge” rather than a dry one or wet one. Why? Well, because a damp one absorbs more than a dry one, right? But a damp one absorbs more than a wet one, too, one already saturated with “enough” ideas. So if we stay learners, we have a better shot at flushing out our blindspots and breaking through our plateaus. Yet we also come to free ourselves from the baggage of criticism, public opinion, misinformation, and even our own doubts and insecurities as we gain more confidence in our own abilities to guide ourselves. Over time, this can lead to less grasping of conventional ideas, habits, and formulas as we morph into something more explorative. Ultimately through artistic awareness then, we gain creative autonomy, a better ability to make our own decisions based on real information that we ourselves have excavated from our work.
Why Is That Important?
When we experience the changes inherent in this kind of journey, we're changed, too. When we open ourselves up to other potentialities, we also find ourselves rethinking what motivates us and that’s actually pretty important. Why?
Well, for one, working in equine realism means we're portraying an animal embedded in a buzzing cloud of ethical questions, value judgments, and differing opinions, all of which we must wade through to come to our own conclusions. Even so, it can get confusing with all the mixed messages out there when we have to make decisions true to our values and goals. Really, most artists make a questionable decision not because they're inhumane, but because they're misinformed. Realism obligates us to a kind of accountability not found in many other art forms so staying grounded and self-educated is key. In this, our convictions may change as we gain more insights and that's a good thing. Forward evolution is always a very good thing. But all this means that if we’re engaging this over-arching journey of Seeing unaltered, chances are we aren't venturing far enough into our internal explorations.
Second, realism has such a high standard, one weighable against the living example—and that's a hard act to follow! And despite all our work, none of us are going to attain 100% objective reality in our clay or pigment or prints…and maybe that's a good thing. But how we handle this Don Quixote dilemma then is a measure of ourselves and that's meaningful to appreciate. Because the truth of the matter is there are many different ways to express equine realism accurately, there isn’t One Right Way. There are many paths to the goal! And in this we have room for interpretive style and aesthetic touches that makes each artist unique and each piece truly a miracle.
Third, the difficulty of our quest has many traps lurking in wait for us. The trap of frustration, the trap of envy, the trap of resentment, the trap of rivalry, just to name a few. But when we've truly learned the lesson that artistic awareness gifts us, we cease to compete against each other to instead turn our attention onto ourselves and our own goals, working to establish our own standards and ambitions, and setting out to reach them on our own terms. Because giving 100% to any piece is all we can ask of ourselves, right? So if we stretch, reconsider, scrutinize, and practice to the very edge of our abilities — and that includes challenging our blindspots and plateaus — that will show in our work and keep it vibrant, evolving, and engaging. In doing so, we become less inclined to compare our work and successes with those of others, better preserving our joy and enthusiasm in what we’re doing. Absolutely, there are few things that can kill off our motivation more efficiently than comparing ourselves to others. Stay on target with own your work without apology. Your magic is wholly unique in all the Universe! The magic of other artists isn’t yours — and you don’t need it! Embrace and revel in your own!
Comparison is the death of joy.
— Mark Twain
And fourth, the path to progress is going to be littered with our own internal baggage, burdens that hold us back that are often of a deeply personal nature. For instance, I was invited to critique a lady’s paintjob but in a roundabout way, it ended up not really being about the paintjob. Through some rather pointed guided introspection, she discovered that she was blocking herself not with her choices, but with the awful voice put into her head by her Aunt who once told her as a child that what she drew was wrong — and that voice was still telling her that what she was painting was wrong when it really wasn’t. But it’s often unacknowledged internal battles such as these that can be a chronic roadblock for us which means that how much we’re willing to dig, confront, and reconcile can sometimes make or break our progress. Daunting prospect, isn't it? But often necessary.
And, fifth, this brings us to perfectionism. Now I wrote The Perfectionist Paradox about this issue back in 2021 and it’s worth a read. But suffice to say, this art form does ask for a lot of perfection yet this very thing can become our worst monster so easily! Learning to find balance when confronted with this lofty expectation then is a continual effort on our part, but a worthwhile one to mull over from time to time. Indeed, there’s a huge difference between striving for perfection and a fear of failure just as there’s a massive difference between setting high expectations and nothing ever being up to snuff. We have to accept mistakes and see them for what they really are: Learning. So what is driving our perfectionism? Fear? Ambition? Curiosity? Maybe a bit of all three? Really root around and get to the heart of the matter. Truly, discovering its engine can do a lot not just for our improvement, but a lot more for our creative happiness in the long run.
Sixth, given the nature of realism, we're going to get stuck on a plateau at some point and will have to somehow scramble our way off. Indeed, if we're approaching our work in a proactive way, each piece will be underscored with a drive to understand more than before, if even just a little bit. Our same ol' modus operandi just isn’t going to help us move forward, will it? How could it? We need new aspects that would boot us out of our self–made status quo. This quote by Albert Einstein comes to mind, “Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” This art form asks us to evolve forwards so periodically kicking our own status quo to the curb to stretch, explore, challenge, and confront our own conventions is an important part of following through. It can be intimidating and even frustrating, but it’s the only way to pop blindspots and jump off plateaus. It’s so darned easy to lean too much on familiar formulas and comfortable ways of interpretation, isn’t it? All that familiarity is great for sure, but the problem is that it comes with our habitual blindpots, the same ol’ missteps over and over again. We gotta rattle our own cage from time to time to see what falls out!
Seventh, know that our perception is a one–way circuit: Change happens first in our perception to then flow into our work, not the other way 'round. So if we want to fix anything in what we See, we have to target our perception first. Change our Sight and we change our work. Even more though, this also means that our magic wand lies within us! And we each have one — one unique just to us. So if we can accept that we always have a lot more to learn — a lot more opportunities to See differently — we gain a lot more responsiveness and traction in our growth. Hard talk here: It doesn't matter if we believe our methods have worked for us in the past with great success. That may be so. But a plateau is always waiting for those who get too comfortable. The real measure of success is our ability to continue evolving no matter how long we’ve been at this, in whatever direction our own magic takes us.
Human beings, by change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To accept fallibility and to therefore stay open to possibility helps us to continually challenge our own conventional thinking, feeding a drive for discovery so critical for growth. Keep our mind open then, especially about our own potential, and our work will always remain fresh and innovative. Stay curious and always question, especially when we become comfortable in our work.
But know that you aren’t alone. We’ve all been there. It’s all just a natural byproduct of learning to then unlearn to relearn again and again. And we all have to start somewhere right? And from there on in, we all have to restart somewhere, too. And the platform we jump from is our habitual way of doing things, our momentary plateaus. So if we can finagle it so they stay temporary, they become springboards that launch us to the next stage rather than mesas we get stuck on, frustrated and confused. Never underestimate the power of rethinking, reimagining, reevaluating, or the moxie to introduce the unfamiliar, maybe even the radical into our work. Be bold! Be brave! Believe in your gumption! If our blindspots and plateaus live inside us, aren’t we then our greatest obstacle? But then we’re also our greatest hero, right? If the tricky bit lies within us, we can fix it with a bit of self-directed moxie — we got this.
Personal Metamorphosis
And this is the real reason why realism can be so darned hard to master—it's not just a matter of media, technique, concepts, references, interpretations, or our subject. More than anything it's a matter of ourselves. How so? Well, we cannot dig through what we See without first discovering why our skews and blindspots exist in the first place because these are things knitted right into our perception — and that’s rooted in who we are. Rummaging through one dissects the other if we’re digging deep enough. For example, why do we sculpt the eyes so buggy? Or why do we paint the appy spots so skewed? Why did we paint our ticking so out of scale? What are we Seeing wrong? Why are we Seeing it wrong? What are we not admitting to ourselves? What are we trying to deny or avoid? Why? How can I fix these blindspots? Am I hesitant? Procrastinating? Resistant? Why? How did I end up here? What was I neglecting? Why? Did my ego get in the way? Did I have a skewed sense of quality? Did I become too comfortable in how I do things? Why?
Do you see how this rabbit hole just gets deeper and deeper if we’re really digging? But that’s exactly what’s also needed to proactively root out blindspots and plateaus — we have to address our inner landscape. See, a blindspot or plateau tends to happen for a reason, and one that has less to do with arts technique or media and more to do with personal reasons. Yet it's precisely this introspective feature that's not usually addressed when we consider these things. Make targeted introspection a habit then and we'll find that our inner landscape has far more influence on our media than we ever suspected; what we cannot See in our work is a manifestation of what we cannot See within ourselves and so we may continue to self–sabotage our efforts. Yet this is a very personal matter to unravel and no one can do it for us. We have to be willing to do it at regular intervals, too, because as our skills advance so do our blindspots and plateaus. This exploration isn't always comfortable but we have so much to gain such as artistic and personal growth, and much more connectedness with this lovely creature.
So it's not always inaccessible instruction, inadequate technique, deficient talent, or problematic media that roadblock our way. We can also induce our problems from the inside to skew our Sight. But—hey—that's good news! It means we have the exclusive power to come to our own rescue, doesn’t it? We don't have to depend on anyone or anything—we're in control, and we can do so in our own way, in our own time. It's okay then to question ourselves, our perceptions, our skills, our motivations, our ambitions, our values, and our goals. Indeed, it's a healthy exercise. Nevermind if everything we've ever done has brought us success. A willingness to stay hungry will serve us well.
Art that serves an artist best is an experiment in expanding awareness.
~Peter London
Because consider this: Questioning ourselves doesn't mean we're insecure, paranoid, self–doubting, or overly sensitive. It means we're confident, centered, and devoted enough to give careful thought to what we're doing rather than just blindly doing it. Cogitating our inner experience aligns our consciousness with the creative moment, bringing our locks and keys closer together to release our true talents. Make this a habit and we might be surprised by what we learn about our talents, our subject, and ourselves!
It is a profound human waste for people to go through life half–hearing, half–seeing, and only dimly aware of the range of their own perceptions and capabilities.
~J. Ken Clark
Think about that for a moment. To me this is a fundamental idea and one I revisit often. Because if we wish to continue moving forward, this notion lies at the base of that adventure, doesn't it? I want to seed this little idea: Excelling in realistic equine sculpture isn't so much about learning the ropes—the ropes will always be there, dangling for anyone to grasp—but instead it has more to do with learning about ourselves since we're the only ones who perceive that particular reality that gets infused into our clay or pigment. This makes realistic equine sculpture not only a creative journey, but a personal one as well. Every challenge or barrier we'll ever encounter is just an expression of something inside us that holds us back, and so it's within our power—and only our power—to tackle it. We created it and so we can conquer it. It’s really just that awesome.
Because in my wanderings through the equine art and horse industry, I've discovered this unexpected truism: The more we come to truly understand ourselves, the better our work becomes. And this is the great final gift the noble equine offers us on this path: We’re transformed into souls able to meet him and our fellows on that special plane found only through Awareness — we can look and finally See each other.
Skill is less important than awareness.
— Graham Collier
STEM
But to wrap it up in a nice package, we can think of the fruits of artistic awareness as STEM: Seeing more effectively, Translating with greater accuracy, Evaluating with more acuity, and drawing from a Memory with more scope. And the more we develop our awareness, the greater the benefits of STEM. This is because Seeing, Translating, Evaluating, and Memory are four different components that all go into a realistic sculpture or paintjob. We have to better perceive what’s actually there to then interpret that in our clay to then step back and take stock, all the while drawing from a mental library supplemented by field study and reference photos. How well developed these four components are and how well they harmonize together will determine not only the quality of our work but how much we advance with each effort.
And blindspots hide in each one and so understanding the nature of each component can really help us target their particular soft spots. For instance, if we’re consistently making our front hooves asymmetrical with each other but we can see that they’re annoyingly asymmetrical, we have a Translation blindspot problem. Something about our tools or technique is going haywire and so we need a new method to sculpt hooves. Or on the other hand, if we’re habitually sculpting faces in the same way, we might have a blindspot in our Memory. Here then we need to expand our knowledge base to include more manifestations of cranial shape, facial musculature, and textural details through more varied field study and analysis of reference photos. Now if we suspect there is a problem in, say, that appy pattern, but we can’t put our finger on it, chances are we have a blindspot in our Evaluation process — we need better troubleshooting techniques. But perhaps the trickiest of all blindspots to ferret out are those that lie within our Sight because they entail our perception filter of reality. It’s hard to see how we’re going wrong when we live inside the proverbial fishbowl. In this then we need to employ more artistic exercises, study, comparisons, and research — and more practice — to hone our Sight into something less burdened by habitual crutches.
Learning to tease out our blindpots into these four components can really help us bust them apart easier and faster because we now have a kind of system, don’t we? We have a plan, a method, not just a shot in the dark. Actively develop your STEM and you’re well on your way to independent, autonomous progress at a pace you might not have thought possible of yourself! How cool is that?
Summing Up
Learning to develop our artistic awareness isn’t just a basic step forwards, it’s the foundation for all our steps forwards, one that will always sustain our growth and support every direction we choose. And through a more developed STEM, we can then better identify the quirks in our efforts that give rise to our blindspots and plateaus to become more fearless in rethinking what we believe to be self–evident in our work. We won’t ever root out all our blindspots or avoid all plateaus, we’re human after all. And would we really want to? Maybe not. But we can certainly continually deepen our awareness and intensity our STEM whenever we feel we need a bump forwards. And this is the quality of an artist who excels — they play the long game, using each piece as a kind of stepping stone towards their artistic goals. That’s to say they don’t become complacent and comfortable, but instead stay hungry for evolution and discovery. They stay learners. Their perception thus remains plastic and adaptable and so their Sight ever-evolves forwards, with each piece being a bigger discovery than the previous. And it’s through artistic awareness that we first open the door to all these gifts. Discover it, develop it, and employ it and you’ll find that Third Eye that guides you more effectively through any piece you undertake. Even more though, you’ll find that you’re capable of far more than you ever dreamed possible and what better view of your inner self is that?
"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend."
— Henri Bergson
