Embrace Messy
I'm reading The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It's a book that helps artists recover after burnout & rediscover their creativity (at least that's what I'm hoping it'll do for me).
It's very easy for me to think perfection is where happiness lies, especially working in the design field where pixel-perfect is standard & well-thought-out concepts drive the entire project. I mean, that kind of makes you want to get it right the first time.
I do my best to offset this when I'm away from the screen with hobbies like taking care of my succulents, writing & sketching but the problem with a perfectionist mentality is that it doesn't have a timeframe. It badgers you when you're watering the plants, digging its claws into your psyche; "These are going to die, you don't know how to take care of living things".
It pops into your head at the end of a run-on sentence as you're spilling your heart out onto the page; "Who do you think you are? You're not a writer!"
It even takes away the 2 weeks of fun you had simply doodling away fun words as a weekly project. It starts comparing you to others so much that you don't open your sketchbook all week out of fear.
The beautiful thing about being an artist (which I will forever argue all of us are) is that you can take this negative self-talk or your ruminating thoughts & turn it into something compelling. It could be bright strokes on a canvas, it could be a heartfelt story told in black & white, it could be a universal message that will guide someone to a perspective they needed to see that day. Whatever happens, that's not the part you're attached to as an artist. You don't even have to share it with anyone. You just feel the urge that you must. get. this. out. So you honor it.
I had to get this out.
I'm craving to embrace my messy as a human being because I'm tired of swearing at the vacuum when I get tangled around the chord. I'm over listening to my gremlins telling me I can't keep things living (tell that to my fiddle fig I'm SAVING right now) & I sure as hell AM a writer. I'm writing right now.
It has nothing to do with the curated images I see on social media, that's the least of the platforms I'm playing victim to. We have to all know at this point that images online don't tell the whole story. It's silly to aspire to one morsel of someone else's bigger picture.
Listen. Learn. Love.
& then set that aside so you can hear what you're telling yourself.
Are you talking to yourself kindly? Are you letting you speak up & out & in circles?
This is messy. It's all coming out in jumbles. My heart just got lighter. Embrace your messy.
Cheers, Em
Week 3/52 of the #52handlettered project with Miranti Kayess (formerly Pen & Peplum)
