Creating your bravest and boldest work

Published 9:00 am Wednesday, December 7, 2022

It is not uncommon for artistic or creative individuals to struggle with maintaining focus, not only in their day to day life but in their art as well.

Creative minds have a tendency to be impulsive and fickle and bounce wildly between ideas and mediums. This attention deficit can be a stumbling block to the creative process.

Procrastination, perfectionism, poor self-esteem, getting lost in the details, loss of motivation to finish projects, failing to stick with a medium, and missing deadlines are all stumbling blocks that can — and do — derail artists.

Americian novelist Claire Messud once said, “obstruction can be caused by so many factors — perfectionism, distraction, faltering confidence, external demands, and pressures. At some point, of course, you’ve got to push through it all if you’re to write, and if you don’t, or can’t, you’re sunk.”

There is an abundance of self-help books and articles telling artists the key to creative focus is to work during peak creative hours, plan your goals and work toward them, utilize time optimization tools, maintain whitespace, focus on specific elements of your art, prioritize, sleep, eat, drink water; there is no end to this advice.

This advice offers cookie cutter solutions to complex and individualized problems, and when they inevitably do not work it is easy to become discouraged.

It’s in the face of that discouragement and feeling as though you will never amount to anything that you have to remember why you became an artist.

You feel most alive and like yourself whenever you are engaging in your art.

Take heart and take care of yourself, and keep cultivating your art even when you feel the crippling weight of discouragement take hold of you, especially then.

It is in these moments where it seems like there is no future for our art that we create the bravest and boldest work.

Regardless of where you are on your artistic journey, or how you are feeling as an artist today, know that you are enough. Your art is enough.