My Biggest Art Block Will Surprise You

Have you heard of the phrase “multi-passionate”?  The first time I heard it was from the business coach Marie Forleo to describe entrepreneurs who have a lot of different skills and interests.  It’s also a great way to describe many of the artist I know. 

In fact, one of the common blocks I experience is NOT running out of ideas, it’s having too many ideas and getting paralyzed with indecision and overwhelm.  That’s the nature of creativity and curiosity. Ideas lead to more ideas.  I like awake and think “I wonder what would happen if I….” 

With all these ideas, I easily get overwhelmed.  When I have a number of ideas and no clear direction, it’s more likely that I will TAKE NO ACTION AND BE COMPLETELY BLOCKED.  As my granny says, you can’t ride two horses with one butt.  Or in my case, I want to ride a whole herd of horses running in different directions.

When you say yes to one thing, you necessarily say no to other things.  Ultimately I’ve found that being definitive about my YES is the answer to this pesky block of too many ideas.  Today I’m going to talk about how important it is to pick a path and so NO to other options.

The Truth About Artists

So, here’s something that’s true about artists, and me in particular.  I am endlessly inspired by all sorts of things.  I am inspired by the natural world, I’m inspired by interior design, I’m inspired by the color palette in my daughter’s favorite cartoon, I’m inspired by interesting uses of materials, I’m inspired by concepts in books and I’m inspired by my Pinterest boards.

And I want to make art about EVERYTHING!  I want to learn how to blow glass and weave macrame and create digital art and throw pots and make gouache mandalas. 

But here’s something I’ve learned.  When I say yes to too many things, I end up with a meh to everything.  Which is to say, if I hop around to many different expressions, I may have an enjoyable time learning, but the results of my efforts will be basic and sophomoric.  Excellence and developing craft takes a while and requires going deep, not wide.

So just like sitting down to read ONE BOOK, I have to tell my flock of ideas, “I’m sorry, but I can just work with one of you this month.” 

The sign of maturity as an artist

A niche isn’t jail.  But developing a series in one category necessarily requires saying “no” to other possibilities.  Sometimes that can feel heartless.  Sometimes that can feel too much like “discipline” and artists want to be FREEEEEEEEE.

But what it actually is is maturity and growth as an artist.  A few years ago I was writing a book about color, and I decided to create a project around rules.  The project was this: I would work in watercolor and I was limited to square watercolor pages that were 5” X 5”.  I could only use one color, I chose Phthalo blue green shade if you want to know.  I chose one shape: circles.

For the first couple of paintings, I thought I had made a mistake. I did not have any ideas, I missed the rainbow, I was bored.  But I had committed to making 20 of these paintings so I forged on.  And slowly, but picking up steam, the ideas came.  I easily made 50 paintings and still return to this exercise for compositional and technique ideas. Maybe I’ll do it again but with purple!

I often think of this as a journey of flow and deliberate practice.  When I am learning a new medium, say knitting, the difficulty level is high.  Everything feels awkward and uncertain.  I don’t have any muscle memory.  My results reflect my low experience levels.  It is very hard to think of new creative ideas when I am just learning how to knit 1 purl 2.

As competence grows, the difficulty of deliberate practice subsides, and I’m able find my flow, which is the sweet spot of a modest amount of challenge mixed with clear goals and progress. In flow, creativity really expands.  Technical mastery gets burnt into our nerve sequences.  We begin to develop our voice.

What is a Unique Artist Voice?

What is a unique voice, you ask?  An artist has a unique voice when their art looks like THEIR ART.  Their mom and best friend could pick it out of a line up.  There work is no longer derivative and clumsy.  Most beginning artists start out by copying strong and powerful voices.  That’s part of the artistic process and that’s what I mean by the term “derivative”.  As a young artist, I made art like my painter father, and then I made art like my college professors.  But maturity as an artist means cutting your own path and making art that’s YOURS.  You will have habitual colors, marks, style, content.  That doesn’t mean you can’t shift, change, and develop.  You can and you will. 

In a rich and exciting lifetime of art making, there may be a time that you know the only way you can express what you want to express is to learn how to do bronze pouring.  It will be worth the time and expense it will take to learn a new process.  But as you mature as an artist, it will require MOSTLY saying NO to fanciful ideas.   And when you say YES to bronze pouring, you will know how to count the cost. 

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