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Yes is a complete sentence Have you heard the term “No is a complete sentence?” It’s a wonderful concept - you don’t have to explain or justify it when you say no. It's just No. When you start to explain and justify it gives people who are trying to manipulate you or who don’t respect your boundaries an opportunity to break down that no. But it’s just NO. I propose that when it comes to your creative life YES is also a complete sentence. You don’t have to justify or squish your creative impulses. Let yourself play and feel pleasure with the materials you love, the colors you love, the ideas you love, the imagery you love. Can we breathe that in for a moment? Yes. When I get an inspiration, I go through this whole routine of justifying it. Defending it. But I can just say YES if I feel a YES! What thoughts are you having now? Are you having a lot of “buts.” But glitter makes my art look amateur. But so and so said that my colors were garish. But so and so said my painting was boring. My painting was wrong, my painting was dangerous, or safe, or all the things, all the judgments! So we say NO, sometimes to our deepest pleasures! We don’t want to look silly, we don’t want to look like amateurs, we don’t want that feeling of people laughing behind our back or scoffing. We also judge. We judge what we don't want to be. But its all in us. We have in us the toddler being given crayons for the first time. We have the adolescent drawing pretty girls with their hands behind their backs because hands are hard. We have within us the relaxed retiree learning traditional plein air landscape painting. We have the wild abstract expressionist hurling paint. We have the suburban matron with her hobby room full of arts and crafts supplies from Hobby Lobby. We have a designer in love with minimalism. We have the rebel making art with her menstrual blood. We have the hippie painting giant mandalas and goddesses or magnificent tie dye tapestries! We have the beginner who needs to use tools like a projector or AI to achieve their vision. We have the expert who spent years mastering her craft and can’t let go. I could go on. We judge some of them and revere others. We fear being perceived as something we don’t want to be. Our shadow. I don’t want someone to think I’m just ________. So we say no. Not because we wouldn’t enjoy it, but because we don’t want to BE that. We disown that. And when we do that, we also disown everything that persona brings to the table. What does that cost us? You should make your own list, the creative personas you see out in the world, the ones you like and the ones you dislike. Which ones do you revere? Which ones do you disown? What does the disowned persona offer that we might lose when we fight the possibility of BEING that? I’m not saying you have to BE that, I’m just saying that we all usually strongly dislike certain creative paths. There are others we feel neutral about, but the ones that we have strong feelings about, maybe there is some magic in there, or some truth,. You don’t have to become that in order to have the benefits. You just need to stop JUDGING and disowning it, distancing yourself from it. Have some respect for it. You are your own person, it won’t infect you! Is there anything you say NO to that maybe could be a YES? What happens when you try? We have all those personas inside us, but we can't (and shouldn't try) ACTUALIZE them all in real life. We don’t need to. If we are chasing every little thing that interests us, there is a cost to that as well. But give a deeper look to the ones that feel strong. Questions to explore
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Your Best Self Must Share Your Studio With Your Inner Depressed Artist. What is the culture of your studio? Is it a place to have discipline and work ethic? Where you compare yourself and your art to what you wish it would be and fret about how you are falling short? A place of inadequacy and laziness? That might be how it feels when you are depressed. Think of your most fragile, broken, disappointed artistic self. No motivation, feeling down, unable to work, unable to play, messy, dusty and abandoned. That depressed self must also feel comfortable in your studio. That sad hopeless wretch – it is her space too. It should be just as welcoming to her as it is to you when you are bustling with energy and alive with inspiration. Both creatures share this sacred space and if the energy of your studio only welcomes your most successful and driven version, it will not be a safe space for your inner artist when she is not well and needs love and support. When you are at your most motivated, you probably leave a mess. There is no comfortable place to sit because it is covered with sketches or wet paintings needing a space to dry. Brushes left in dirty water, caps left off tubes, excited writing and sketches that might be overwhelming and intimidating to your depressed side. Unfinished work she doesn’t know how to reenter, lacking the confidence to contribute anything of value. Before you leave your studio, assume that you might be in a low mood, low energy, depressed the next day. What does that part of you need to feel welcome? Fresh paper, easy to use supplies laid out in rainbow order, clean brushes ready to go, a bucket ready to be filled with water. Think of it as a closing blessing ritual for the studio to make it a safe welcoming place in case you feel low the next day. And if you are still feeling great the next day? What a delight! This beautifully laid out space, so inviting.  Our art matters - it matters that we make it In order to actualize our best and most honest art, we need (and deserve!) support. What support do you need, from yourself, and from others? This week, the support I needed came from myself and from my coach. I am starting a creative business, it is still a wee idea quickening. But I have been trying things that I was too scared to do when I was younger. I needed to be brave and take a chance and do something that felt scary. I needed to not assume I knew what the outcome was going to be. I needed some hope! I decided to believe and trust my coach and did what she suggested, which has been having conversations with women who want more meaningful creativity in their life. It has been really wonderful to have these conversations and to break through this limit I’d put on myself. For a while I was very world weary. I thought there’s no more surprises, no more color, no more freshness for me in my own art or my career. I am comfortable in my middle class, middle aged life, running out of steam, time to slow down. I don’t feel like I am being negative or a downer. I am accepting, I am embracing getting older. I love muted colors, so I was letting my own life become muted! I told myself that I know how it will go, it’s okay, but I'm being realistic about what is possible for me now. I’m releasing old ideas that won’t work for me, letting go of stale old dreams. Some of that is healthy. But is a death march, or could it be that I was making room for something new? The most obvious thing we need to do in order to continue growing is to get out of our comfort zone. I’m good at trying new materials. But there has been this low grade anxiety throughout this whole period of acceptance. Artistically, I felt I had lost connection with my inner voice. I think I kept running away from it. I didn’t like what it was saying. Sometimes it said things I hear other artists say in their work. Do I get to say it too? Do I have to say it in a new way in order to be allowed to express this common experience in my art? This week I started an online self discovery through photography course. Honestly I thought, I’m too old for self discovery. I’ve discovered myself to death! As I’ve been working through the lessons I see how I limit myself, how I scoff at certain things. And you know what they say, when you have that kind of judgemental feeling there might be something behind it that you need to poke at. One lesson in the photography course was the Expressive Gaze. Capturing emotion! I have emotions of course, but I feel like at thai age I am supposed to have them under control. Expressing emotions is for kids! I just didn’t know what to do with the prompt. “Am I supposed to just look at the camera and make a bunch of facial expressions?” And my wee little voice said, “well no one is going to see, I wonder what would happen if you did that?” So I took a burst of photos, and just made faces. I had like, all this pepper in my teeth. And then I did one with that super unflattering double chin angle, but I shook my head so my hair was flying all over, and that was kind of cool. And then I made myself think about a really sad thing, and let my face emote hard for a powerful second. And then when I looked at the burst of photos, it was really moving. I got teary?! I really did not expect that, at all. And I love that, I love that there is, OF COURSE! OF course this is true, but there is still newness and surprise. Is there anything you think is dumb or embarrassing that you can try in the privacy of your own studio, just to see what happens? What will you permit yourself to do, to express, to try? Are you willing to be surprised, to see something new?    Great reference photos for wild gray hair and Hag Rage!
What is this? This is a prompt to inspire creative work. Use it for writing, visual art, dance, music, any creative work. The current prompt is 'Seen/Hidden." It also a great way to discover new artists and creative work and to just enjoy it. The idea of being hidden/seen was one I explored many years ago as “Signal/Camouflage” when I was teaching middle school while in a lesbian relationship, right after Prop 8 passed. I was out everywhere but at work. I was an artist exploring sexuality through my art and it was scary. I wanted to be seen and known but that felt dangerous in a slightly conservative community. That was when I assumed my artist name in order to protect my livelihood and my artist soul. I invite you to explore this idea - there are many directions it could go. I want to use it for my own work but I'm not sure how to get started Here are some great ways to get ideas rolling
And then what? What comes next depends on your creative process. You might come up with an idea for an artwork you want to make, or you can use the prompt as creative calisthenics and let whatever you find and discover descend into your subconscious where it might come back up intuitively in a later work. I Made a Thing! Yay! We wanna see it! Post a link to it below or share in the "Women Artist to Know" Facebook group. If you feel shy, you can email me :) |
AuthorLaurel Antur Archives
July 2024
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