Artist Pep Talk?
Restarting routines with an unpacking of supplies, thoughts, and a return online
Hello to September (a little late) and a new month of art-making!
Despite the latest Pacific Northwest heatwave, I am thankful the evening air here is a bit chillier as Summer slowly wanes and Fall approaches. I welcome the chance for cooler temperatures amidst my return to a studio artist life after a busy summer of showing my art (gasp, I made it to TWO outdoor shows this year)1 and moving my studio, home, and family to new locations. Whew!
I am now unpacking boxes of supplies next to tables where projects are beginning to once again take shape. As I hang peg boards and sort through materials, I am organizing various workstations, trying to figure out how they will all fit in my new little space. From oil painting, paper-making, and printmaking to computer graphics, knitting/sewing & shipping - I have a lot of fingers in a lot of different pies. I pause every so often and remind myself that it’s okay if everything isn’t organized yet. It’s okay if projects are incomplete. It’s okay if I haven’t pulled out my art journal since July or worked on my digital drawings. It’s okay if I haven’t found words for a new poem or written here for a while. It’s okay if I feel out of step, out of practice, and unsettled. Today is a new day and I will find a corner of the drawing table and make space to work on a small project despite the garage filled with boxes and the storage unit filled with art. I will find a small photo-worthy moment and share it online. I just need to take a deep breath, appreciate the quiet, appreciate the space I have available and the materials before me, and simply take a moment to create.
I often tell people the hardest part of creating is getting started.
The simple act of pulling supplies out of drawers and clearing room on a table deserves a moment of celebration. Ideas, designs, and creations can live nicely in my head but can’t realize their full potential without some sort of creative output. It is easy to let them mill about my mind. It’s hard to turn them into something shareable. And it all starts with carving out a little space, grabbing some tools, and making those first marks. Only then can I start fully exploring my artistic process as ideas start to become a visible, tangible, “living” entity of their own.
… seeing a constant deluge of work being created online… can cause me to become overwhelmed and humbled to the point of artistic immobility.
In today’s world, however, I probably need to add the second hardest part of creating… turning away from the constant flow of outside input. While I can be incredibly moved and impacted by the work of other artists - seeing a constant deluge of work being created online by a seemingly endless myriad of talented people can cause me to become overwhelmed and humbled to the point of artistic immobility. I see so many amazing creations in a seeming world of constant production that I have trouble seeing how my efforts can compare and can quickly lose my motivation.
But I step back to remind myself (a) the value is not in comparison and (b) a curated online world is often an illusion created together through intent and insecurity and (c) the problem can be mitigated in one step - by going offline.
(a) Avoiding Comparison
Before I met my husband, I largely participated in sports that were centered around having a clear winner and loser (primarily volleyball and tennis). The goals were to beat the opponent in order to win. Growing up in a sporting household, this was drilled into me from a young age. (Yes, as a University of Washington graduate I also came from a household full of Dawgs who loved going to Husky Stadium for every home football game for most of my childhood.) There was always a huge emphasis on competition in my household, and it wasn’t lost on me. My husband, however, though competitive (and also a Husky), was also a swimmer and runner, and slowly lured me to these sports which (especially at our level anyway) emphasized self-improvement. We started running 5K races together. (“Beat the Bridge” in Seattle was my first 5K and I was thrilled to get across the bridge before they raised it for the boat traffic even though there was a sea of people well ahead of me in the race.) We even did a few short triathlons and biathlons individually and as a duo as well as several different marathons over the years. It was fun sharing in sports where the primary goal was to beat myself and get a PR (personal record). Of course, especially in our younger days, we tried to beat each other as well!
Each artist has their own story to tell.
All that is to say - I learned the importance of personal improvement over comparions to what other people were doing. In my art career, this has meant watching and learning from my own artistic struggles while making efforts to try new techniques and ideas rather than comparing my work to others. While I’m grateful to my competitive spirit for providing me strength and motivation in the past, I now try to focus on the lessons of self-improvement and growth as a measure of my art-making progress instead. For art isn’t a competition, it’s a language. And as I practice and play with the tools of this language, sharing my progress and receiving feedback as I work, I find my voice. I learn to communicate my intent more effectively and work toward creating interesting, thoughtful artwork independently of what other artists may create. Each artist has their own story to tell.
(b) It’s easy to be lured by a curated story showcasing an artist’s “success” (in quotes because it’s such an ill-defined and impertinent word regularly used as a measure for art achievement which retains no personal meaning) by scrolling through an online feed. The feed may tell a specific story or promote a particular online brand. The content may be chosen to represent a very specific persona, intended or otherwise. At the same time, the viewer may bring a varying level of insecurities or inexperience to the content which can create a sprial of self-doubt by comparison. Whether or not the visual online story being told or our perception of it is accurate, however, is not where our lens should focus. It is irrelevant. I can be awed by the work of others. Be inspired. Be intrigued. But it is my own creative process that deserves my attention without judgment or comparison to someone else’s art journey. Am I compelled to make art? Then I should use my creative impetus to communicate with design, imagery, color and texture what it is that is unique to my interpretation of the world around me that (hopefully) speaks to and/or illuminates other people’s experiences - however few or many people that may be. I should not be making art as a comparison to someone else’s journey or to reach any set number of people.
[Art] should not be limited by what we fear we cannot do.
Rather, I want to reach deep within and find a way to give ideas, events, or emotions a visual life regardless of their content curation or online reach. Art allows for a unique interpretation of the world around us and can give us new perspectives and understanding of what we think we know, see and feel. It doesn’t live and breathe within the confines of a screen - it is so much more than what an online feed can provide and should not be limited by what we fear we cannot do.
With this in mind, as I watched the ebb and flow of my artistic inspirations and frustrations over the last few years, I decided to change part of my approach to facilitate a healthier artistic path. I had already left Facebook (for more than artistic reasons). Next, I set limits on my daily screen and other social media time. And then, in 2022, I planned for weeks and months at a time away from online content.
So today, after a planned August “social media break”, I find myself once again refreshed and eager to restart and share my art-making in process.
By planning for time offline I can choose an online presence that is more authentic.
(c) While it may be an imperfect solution to the negative impact an online existence can promote, I find unplugging allows me to step back and make space for a mental reset. (Although it’s important to remember it’s not a replacement for good therapy.)2 I’m sure you’ve all seen celebrities from Simu Liu to AOC sharing their own struggles and finding ways to support their mental health despite the intensity of their public lives. But I find it’s not just celebrities who benefit from taking a break or prioritizing their own needs. By planning for time offline I can choose an online presence that is more authentic. With the opportunity to step away and look inward, to create freely unseen, or simply take care of the mundane yet necessary tasks of life offline, I can be more thoughtful and personal as I share and create.
I recognize I am but a small fish in a sea of online content. As such, though, I have no excuse. I am grateful for these easy opportunities to take breaks and will be planning more in the future. They remind me to look inward, to appreciate the people and community I keep close to my heart, to breathe, to enjoy unscheduled time in more healthy ways, and to find focus and faith in my own art-making. In doing so, I can better navigate my own artistic self-doubt while finding purpose in the sharing as well as the making.
So, after several weeks without a studio and a month mostly off-line, I am finally setting up my new studio and desk space (with a new computer - yay!) while finding my writing feet again (is that a saying?) and returning here to you in this latest “an Artist’s Notes” (aka inner dialogue and personal pep-talk?). And as I return from taking this time to attend to my personal life, I also pause to reflect and navigate my own artistic motivation and self-doubt. I hope by doing so I can eventually offer my most authentic self and, in turn, my most provocative art along the way.
To the making of new art with the turning of the seasons!
Cheers ~ Jennifer
BONUS: A day in the life of a working studio artist
As I wrote the above text (mostly written in the last day and a half), what was life in the studio like?
Day 1
9 - 11am | form a general outline of thoughts regarding returning to the studio
11am - 1pm | work further on a Plein air painting started the previous week
break | lunch + walk to park
3 - 4pm | clean and organize studio table and work desk (photos below)
4-6pm | return emails & troubleshoot new computer connectionsDay 2
7 - 9:30am | worked on article
break | breakfast & shower
10:30 - 2pm | finish article, add photos, troubleshoot photo file transfers to new computer, and finally schedule article for Substack publication
break | lunch
2:30pm - 3pm | finish set-up of printmaking & paper-making workstation
3pm - 4pm | first attempt of printmaking with newly made glycerin-gelatin plate
Photos from the Day
(I will try to start providing these honest recordings of how I spend my studio time in one article/month as added insight to the reality of a working artist’s actual studio life vs. the fantasy often portrayed in media. However, every artist’s working style and habits are unique and my particular time-management choices are reflective of my personal and professional work style, needs, and development.)
I gasp, jokingly, here because when I started working as a full-time studio artist I actually went to as many as 25 shows a year (which is modest compared to some festival artists I know), until I slowly found more ways to sell online and reduced my travels to a more reasonable (for me) 8-10 shows a year. It was in the unexpected turn of events of these pandemic times, however, that the long contemplated prospective experiment of running my art business without shows became a sudden reality. I discovered that at this stage of my career it was no longer a necessary part of my business model. While I will always love some travel and find the feedback of one-on-one interactions with large groups of art patrons at these events very valuable, I’m now pondering this revelation and suspect I’ll make different choices in the coming years as a result.
All observations noted in this article are conjectures based on my personal experience. If it is not obvious, I want to make clear that I have no training or experience as a counselor or therapist. I have the utmost respect for those who do and would encourage anyone in need to seek help from a licensed therapist. For resources, check with your healthcare professional, or (in the USA) you can find more information online at mentalhealth.gov
Ah, I can relate to everything you said here! It's comforting to know that I am not the only artist who feels this way...especially how overwhelming it is to see so much "eye candy" art online, and feeling like I'll never get "there" with my own art!
Best wishes to you,
Alexis