Introduction to Part II
Welcome back to this three-part exploration of imperfection in art, specifically equine realism. We’ve covered a lot of ground with Part I with the Imperfect Goal and the Imperfect Journey, so now let’s continue with two imperfect features that entail quite a lot to chew on. So let’s just dive in!…
The Imperfect Notion
Many people, including many artists, seem to think that creativity is kinda like a train that goes from Point A to Point B on a neat and tidy rail. That you start your work and steadily work through it to completion. And, yes, it can be like that, and what a blessing when it is! But the fact of the matter is creativity is more like a demolition derby with ideas, challenges, mistakes, and plot twists all crashing together as your smash and bang your way to completion. It’s usually a messy business. Indeed, some pieces can be taxing, even exhausting because of it. Then there are those who have honed their discipline to turn that chaos into more like an off-road rally. In this case, it’s Toad’s Wild Ride as we careen forwards, almost out of control but still plowing steadily onwards to completion. That’s the way I work, right on the edge of utter mayhem but with just enough structure to make progress. But above all, we don’t want our creativity turning into a major freeway during peak rush hour. Ugh…no! So the goal is to just keep moving, in any direction, as long as it’s forwards. And any step forwards, no matter how minuscule, is still forward motion.
Many people also think, including many artists, that “good” art is “perfect” art, that “quality” and “worth” and “perfection” are synonymous. But you and I both know that’s not true. First off, perfection is simply unattainable in this imperfect world as we’ve already discussed. Secondly though, “perfection,” like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. What is perfect to one person will be full of flaws to another. I see it all the time in our technical art form, for example. Some true masterpieces meet with crickets out there while really problematic pieces meet with wild kudos. So many out there adamantly profess to want realism, or technical perfection, but they don’t actually know what that is! It’s so strange that in an activity so dependent on realism that so few seem to actually recognize it when it’s right in front of their face! But that’s “perfection” for ya. So who’s to say? Sure, we can have educated opinions, but they have their own biases, conventions, and blindspots that skew their assessment all the same. Third, Nature isn’t perfect so we shouldn’t be perfect either. In other words, it’s only through imperfection that we can attain true realism! Oh, crazy irony! And Nature is full of variation and oddities, things not presented on anatomy charts or discussed in text. Now this isn’t to say to make deliberate mistakes — nope. It’s to say we need to know the rules first before we can bend them like Nature does. But the point is, “perfect” needs to be kept in perspective so it doesn’t drive us bananas or feed our fear (perfectionism) to potentially paralyze us. And this matters — it matters a lot — because it can spell the difference between your joy or drudgery. Indeed, our modern society pummels us with the expectation of perfection on a daily basis, but the unavoidable fact is that arting just doesn’t function this way. Instead, art is based on imperfection to be beautiful — yes! Your Voice, novelty, happy accidents, individuality, style, artistic appeal — all of it — are dependent on imperfection to even exist, things that imbue your art with more authenticity, beauty, uniqueness, humanity, you-ness, and even more realism. “Learning to let your art not be perfect may be exactly what you need in your quest of finding your own voice,” says Scott Christian Sava, and he’s bang-on correct. Learn to let go, but to let go in the right way, yes? That’s to say we do have technical biological rules to follow, but in addition to that there’s a lot of artistic fudge-factor possible. Therein lies the secret place where the magic can truly happen, of that marvelous union between technical accuracy, artistic expression, and meaningful narrative that’s characteristic of all our very best works.
But all that said, it does get more complicated. Of course it does. Like in Western thought, our art comes from us as individuals, we are the originators of our visions and art works, innovations, or inventions. But this concept wasn’t always the case. In ancient Greek thought, it was a divine spirit called a genius, a muse which serendipitously showed up, touching us with inspiration and enlightenment, carrying us to the completion. And because this was an unpredictable event, so was the creation of truly great work an unpredictable event — something every artist knows all too well. Now this did also mean that if our work was super successful out there, we couldn’t take full credit, could we? Nope. Our capricious genius delivered for us, through us. But on the other hand, if we met with abject failure, we weren’t really to blame, were we? No. Our muse just didn’t show up and do its job! In many ways then, this is a healthier way to process rousing success or abject failure, two things each of us will experience in our arting career, and in very public ways. Because the hard truth is that every artist — every artist — will have bad art days. Days where nothing works right or pieces that just end up far below our potential for whatever reason — it happens. It’s a mystery, but we will all create problematic work because that’s simply part of the art gig. But without a healthy processing strategy, this can drive us into a creative inertia if we aren’t very careful. We’ve got to find a way to keep our motivations fired up despite the failures and successes. Successes? Yep. You see, success can be as traumatic as failure. Failure, because, well…failure. But also success because now everyone is going to expect you to top yourself next time, and that can be utterly paralyzing if you don’t have processing tactics. Then you have imposter syndrome to contend with and the “you’re not good enough” goblin, both of which can poison the process further. And nevermind the hellbent desire for perfection throwing even more demoralization into the fray. In all this and more, failure can crush us with confusion, regret, humiliation, shame, disappointment, disillusionment, and lost face while success can usher in a lot — a lot — of pressure and stress steeped in fear and intimidation. It’s literally a no-win situation! So learning a kind of detachment with both our successes and our failures may be a bit counter-intuitive, but it’s actually a beneficial attitude to adopt. That kind of distance can act as a buffer zone where you give yourself the license to be a fallible human being who tried the best you could with what you had at that moment on your learning curve.
Speaking of detachment, we’ve got to learn not to care about what other people think of our work, good or bad. Why? Because we’ll free ourselves of a great deal of ponderous weight, making our creativity far more buoyant. “I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free,” said Georgia O’Keeffe, right on point. Artist, that’s the headspace you have to find within yourself, down to your core, to find true empowerment. That well of not-caring inside of you is your fountainhead of your most authentic and innovative creativity, despite all the sentiments out there. “The audience comes last,” says Rick Rubin, and he nailed it. You create your art to please yourself first. That’s your prime directive not only to yourself and to the Universe, but to your art. Putting the audience last makes your art more you, more genuine, more unique, and more meaningful because it makes your Voice more potent and emboldened, a massive plus when arting. And trust me — your collectors will appreciate that authenticity all the more because it spices up their options! Just never forget that your art has chosen you, and only you, to manifest through — don’t dishonor it. Don’t contaminate it with the wants, influences, demands, expectations, wishes, criticisms, conventions, biases, and pressures of other people. You’re the creator of your art and they aren’t, therefore they should have no place at your table. Never forget that. The only person who belongs on that throne with that crown is you! So follow your creative gut — your Voice — with gusto. Your head and heart can be mistaken or panic or conflict to lead you astray, but your gut will always take you in the right direction, where you were meant to artistically go.
Consider this, too: “Comparison is the death of joy,” said Mark Twain, and he was absolutely spot on. Evaluating your worth, skill, and talent as a function of how it compares to that of “better” artists isn’t only debilitating and demoralizing, it’s an apples and oranges comparison. You see, you have your own magic, unique in all of space and time, and your art only has you to manifest through. You are its only conduit, it’s sole pathway in all existence. Think about that for a moment. That’s pretty profound, isn’t it? You are important, your art is important, your Voice is important — all that has all the value it will ever need! As Martha Graham put it:
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.
Always remember that your magic is as special, unique, and as unsurpassed as that of anyone else. So you don’t need to compare yourself to other artists, do you? You don’t need their magic — no, not at all. You have your own! Lean into it! So rather than denying it, polluting it, or trying to turn it into something it isn’t, embrace it! And never forget that it’s uniquely and wholly yours, and yours alone — so use it! You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about! Would you be ashamed of devouring a delicious ice cream cone on a hot day? Well, don’t be ashamed about your art! Indeed, your creativity is as natural to you as breathing. Would you be ashamed to breathe? No? So don’t be about your arting. It’s a part of who you are, what you’re all about — don’t hide it away, denigrate it, or dampen it. Crank it up! Art out loud!
Now one can argue that arting out loud takes confidence, and well, yeah…it kinda does. But confidence not in the way you might think. Not the confidence you have when you’ve been arting for a long time, the confidence that comes with experience. No. It takes a truer, more meaningful confidence. You see, real confidence, true confidence isn’t so much about knowing you’ll succeed, but knowing you can snap back into shape after a failure. Real confidence has more to do with resilience, adaptability, and embracing uncertainty — even potential failure — because you know you can bounce back regardless, all the wiser. "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts," said Winston Churchill. And it’s true. And courage in the truest sense of the word: The root word of courage is “cor,” the Latin word for “heart,” so in the early form of “courage” then, the word meant to “speak one’s mind by telling all of one’s heart.” And here’s the thing — fear has no power in the courageous heart that realizes failure isn’t final. You can fix things as you go. You can do it over again. You can morph and bend and adapt to make it work in new ways and directions. You can learn what to avoid on another piece. All of this smooshes together then into a roused powerhouse, allowing you to tackle any piece even in the face of your greatest fears and intimidations. This is the kind of confidence an artist needs most and which isn’t so hard to come by either. Why? Because it’s less about believing in your skill, ability, aptitude, or talent and more about recognizing your own power to bounce back. It has very little to do with how “good” your art actually is and everything to do with how irrepressible you are. Embrace that truth about yourself and you so got this!
Yet too many souls live in fear of their arting. And fear takes many forms: “I’m not enough,”perfectionism, imposter syndrome, procrastination, spinning wheels, intimidation, comparisons, doom scrolling, insecurity, creative timidity, self-deprecation, seeking external validation, bravado, obsession with “likes,” a block, and our comfort zones, habits, and conventions, among many others. Fear knows exactly what buttons to push, doesn’t it? And golly, is it a born button pusher! But this is why those artists who have persevered haven’t actually conquered their fear. In fact, that’s not really possible. Why? Because fear is a very human reaction to a very daunting proposition — and the prospect of making something real that’s exists only in our mind’s eye is a rather daunting proposition, isn’t it? As Brené Brown observes, “To create is to make something that has never existed before. There’s nothing more vulnerable than that.” Indeed. And fear just happens, there’s no stopping it. Instead then, triumphant artists have learned to coexist with their fear and still function despite it, in lieu of it, beside it and — yes — even with it. Absolutely, we can learn to harness our fear to even fuel our efforts, spinning it into an exciting challenge and a problem to solve rather than an insurmountable wall that stops us. So just understand this: Fear and art is a very natural and normal association that’s only really mediated by curiosity, hope, love, courage, confidence, and a whole lotta moxie. Light those up within you then and you’ll launch yourself into the right trajectory!
Complicating matters even more, many folks believe that inspiration is like a light switch, it’s either on or it’s off, and that inspiration is enough to get us from Point A to Point Z on our creative safari. Nope. Inspiration exists on a spectrum, on the one end being like a raging torrent that whisks us away uncontrollably with fireworks and heavy artillery firing off everywhere while on the other end, being like an ethereal wisp of smoke that must be painstakingly cajoled into being or allowed its own time to percolate into something more tangible. And then everything in between. It can even tickle your toes for decades before welling up into action! Whatever it is, each artist feels it in their own way, sometimes in different ways at different times, making it as mysterious and mercurial as a waking dream. But inspiration needs help — it cannot carry our motivations on its own. All it can do is provide the ignition, the flame, but it’s our job to keep that stoked and blazing with our love, patience, perseverance, stubbornness, curiosity, hard work, sacrifice, gumption, courage, and a whole lotta diligent problem-solving and slogging through the tedium. Think of your inspiration more as a quest then. Not necessarily the goal per se — because our visions are impossibly perfect in our mind’s eye — but the beacon that guides us on a creative journey chockfull of surprise detours, obstacles, challenges, enlightenments, and curiosities. And it’s okay to end up in a totally different destination! Sometimes that happens with art, the piece simply changed its mind and decided to take another route. No problemo, my friend. It’s all a normal aspect of arting. It’s a mystery.
However, if you sit around, waiting for “inspiration to strike,” you’ll be waiting around — and not creating your art — for a very, very long time. Because that’s not how inspiration works most of the time. Sure, we can get a random inspirational lightning strike and take off with it like a crazed ferret. It happens. And it’s an amazing feeling! But even so, the vast majority of the time, inspiration isn’t like this, like a light switch, like an on-off button. It’s not really like a dry well that all of a sudden fills with water. It’s more like the water itself and you’re the well. Like Pablo Picasso said, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” You see, you’re a dry well when you aren’t creating yet inspiration usually needs something to work with to get going — it needs its pump primed. So if you just start arting — doing anything creative, in any direction — all of a sudden, that inspiration will crank up like magic! And honestly, get your creativity really going and watch your inspiration turn into a self-propagating, self-sustaining machine, spewing out inspirations like an uncontrolled firehose. Then it becomes a game of simply keeping up! You see, inspiration feeds on itself and that catalyst is often creativity, not the other way around. So just get to work — do anything creative. Beading, journaling, pottery, sketching, flatwork, photography, collage, mosaic, knitting, even cooking, sewing, scrapbooking, quilting, and gardening…whatever. Heck, even deeply listening to music can be a highly effective means to get the inspiration fired up. Take some classes or workshops. Go to a paint n’ sip. Dabble. Experiment. FAFO with your media. Try new media or methods. Get in the weeds and find your way out. But the counter-intuitive gist of all this is: The only cure for sluggish even absent inspiration is to just make art. That’s actually the answer to every single creative problem — make more art. Just make more art. “Good” art, “bad” art, it doesn’t matter. Just bang it out. “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing,” said Georgia O’Keeffe, and that about sums it up. Definitely don’t worry about how “good” it is — the important part is to just do it. “Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art,” astutely advised Andy Warhol.
What’s the point of all this? Well, that the creative state of mind and therefore the creative act is a messy one. It’s not a one-note Perfect Moment, it’s not a straight line. Instead, it’s loaded with a host of “imperfections” that flavor it, and that’s okay! In fact, that’s kinda its hallmark, isn’t it? Creativity is just a chaotic business, so make peace with that and learn to work within its ever-morphing bubble. “In the middle of all the mess, there’s a quiet kind of magic waiting for you. Embrace the chaos, because that’s where your most authentic and beautiful creations come to life,” said Arastasia. Truth!
Recommended watching:
Your Elusive Creative Genius, Elizabeth Gilbert
Success, Failure, and the Drive to Keep Creating, Elizabeth Gilbert
The Power of Vulnerability, Brené Brown
Recommended reading:
Failure Fatigue: Coping With The Cycle Of Faceplants In Art
Now About Those Anatomy Charts, Part I and Part II
Paralyzed By Perfection: Breaking Free Of the Cycle
The Imperfect World
Life as an artist isn’t a bowl of cherries whatsoever. It’s hard. Really, hard. Really really really hard. You have to be truly impassioned with what you do, utterly in love with your work, to simply continue doing it much of the time. Like aside from all the technical, logistical, financial, legal, philosophical, and familial challenges it ushers in, there’s the very real mental health challenges. Mental health? Yes. You see, it’s not your art that will take its toll on you, it’s the world at large that will. It will take its pound of flesh again and again and again. Unfortunately, there are just those out there who’ll quite obviously delight in tormenting you and will shred your work because they can or because they’re simply too callously thoughtless to behave otherwise. It’s like having an ongoing, unstoppable trolling comments section in your life you can’t turn off — and our niche community is particularly vocal in this regard. As such, you’re going to be constantly bombarded with thrown knives aimed directly at you that you can neither dodge nor block. You simply have to take the hits graciously — and do it all over again and again with the creation of every new piece. That’s the Faustian bargain, the trade-off for this blessed life, the price you pay living the artistic life. In this imperfect world, there has to be some sour to balance out the sweet, right? In an imperfect world, discordant notes will be loud and repeating, too. Try to reconcile with that.
Likewise, there’s no rhyme or reason to what the gestalt will go bonko over. I’ve seen more outstanding masterpieces meet with crickets, even criticism, with really problematic work gaining wild kudos and glowing reviews than I can count. I’ve seen so much technical accuracy lose in the ring to technical errors, realistic expression lose to conventional comfort zones, and glowing workmanship on a “plain” color lose to flawed “flash.” I mean, the groupthink claims to want realism, but some just don't know what that actually is, or when it’s right in front of them, they think it’s wrong. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this biz, it’s that some tastes are strongly conventional and can rely heavily on the lowest common denominator comfort zone. Anything that actually presents actual realism yet lies outside those comfort zones will have a more difficult time of it. It’s so strange! One wonders if some collectors have actually ever seen a living horse at all. So what’s the point here? Just do the best you can with where you are on your learning curve, and let the chips fall where they may. Create your art your way for you, for your own reasons and motivations, according to your original visions and inspirations, and any successes are merely an incidental cherry on top. Because the truth is the likelihood of you finding applause out there can be surprisingly slim. Indeed, "do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't," advised Eleanor Roosevelt, and well, any comments section proves her absolutely right. So don’t chase kudos! Don’t seek external validation! Don’t give one wit to “likes”! Quit with the comparisons! If you build your “home” on top of all of that, you’re doomed to crash in a flimsy house of cards.
And then there is always That Guy Who Just Wants To Help, i.e. the “friendly unsolicited critique.” Ugh. These people, lemme tell ya. The tone deafness, the presumption, the denial of your Truth, and all wrapped up in a friendly, “helping” bow. Yikes. Sure many claim they have good intentions — but do they really? I would argue that, no, they usually don’t. Like they want to make your vision like their vision — that’s wrong. They want to impose on your creative space — that’s wrong. They want to “save” you from a big mistake without understanding the backstory of your Truth or your references — that’s wrong. They want to make a “correction” without understanding their own blindspots, biases, and conventions — that’s wrong. They want to hear their own voice sound more knowledgeable — that’s wrong. Just pick it all apart, and their claim of good intentions simply falls apart. The fact of the matter is this: Unless something is outright dangerous or really jerky, there’s absolutely no circumstance that justifies an unsolicited critique. Not one. But oh—how so many love to chime in all the same! So learn to ignore it or process it best you can with plenty of coping mechanisms. Turn off comments sections or flat out ignore comments in your posts. Just remember that your work only has one relationship — with you and only you. Keep that a closed circuit when it comes to public sentiments. It’ll keep your work true to your Voice, authentic, unique, and you sane and balanced and still motivated to art.
Likewise, we’re going to abut up against problematic comments, even rudeness and obnoxiousness, when we display our work in public, and especially when we put it up for sale. For example, people will often ask, “How long did it take you to do that?” A simple enough question at first, but pick it apart and it reveals itself as something rather offensive, doesn’t it? Think about it. What are they really trying to find out? Yep. They’re adding up the price tag as compared to the hours you inputted to determine if your paycheck — if your living wage — is appropriate. Eeesh. So never answer this question. Simply distract from it with something like, “It takes as long as it takes,” then change the subject. Similarly, some people will comment that our work is just “too expensive,” or in other words, too expensive for their pocketbook, making the typical mistake of equating their experience as appropriate for everyone else’s experience. Instead, either ignore the comment and change the subject, or counter with something like, “I do offer a payment plan or here are my lower priced items that might interest you.” Along those lines, you’ll probably also encounter the all-too-common comment, “I could do that myself for nothing!” So what I do is counter with, “Well, you should! Make your own sculpture — it’s good for you! Arting is good for you!” And wow—how quickly they limp away. The point is, people will blurt out truly nonsensical blather so you should have an arsenal of coping mechanisms and responses that get the point across while still remaining professional. When you’re prepared and ready for it, you won’t be caught off guard to make a professional blunder. You also won’t be so anxious because you’ll be armed and ready to deploy, a much more empowered position.
Recommended watching:
Why Your Critics Aren’t The Ones Who Count, Brené Brown
Recommended reading:
The Critic In The Creative Space
Arting In A Bubble: An Empowering Way To Create Art
A New View: Transforming Intimidation Into Inspiration
Redefining Success: Some Thoughts On True Accomplishment
The Comparison Trap: How To Make It Work For You
Conclusion to Part II
Phew! That was a lot to process, huh? But give it a good think. Because if we want to become creative or remain creative, we’ve got to reconcile with imperfection in some functional way. Because a lot of people don’t, and so a lot of people live their life as a squelched would-be artist and that entails a measure of existential pain. Somewhere deep down, they long for something they’re too afraid to grasp, and all too often it’s that fear of imperfection that’s the root cause. And that's a darned shame because it's avoidable.
You see, art, creativity, is your birthright. You come from a long line of creatives back to the very beginning. Homo sapien just has this ingrained penchant for making things needlessly beautiful. Like a bow more ornate than it needed to be, or a cup more beautiful than it needed to be, or an axe more decorated than it needed to be, and on and on. We are a creator species — it’s in our blood, our very DNA. And it’s in you, too. So don’t deny it out of fear! Embrace it in love! Arting is so good for you in so many ways! Even more, imperfection isn’t to be feared or appalled by, it shouldn’t be a seat of anxiety or hesitation — it should be your starting point! So start as miraculously imperfect as you can then just tweak things along the way until you get them “just so” to your liking. That’s how art works! It asks you to take that leap of faith and it will catch you — but only if you take that leap! So jump!
“One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist…Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.”
- Stephen Hawking
