Competition has a lot of benefit. History is littered with examples of how rivalry pushed humans to achieve more in a shorter time. This is great if faster and ‘more’ are your goals. But not everyone needs to be faster, or make more.
I scroll through my algorithmically-driven Instagram feed maybe once every few days. Most of it is art – Artists posting their work. I find Instagram useful for exposing myself to new materials, tools and techniques that I would otherwise not see. It’s like an online art gallery where I can walk around and just take it all in for a while.
Like in an art gallery, many of these artists are FAR more experienced than me. I mean, like, 20 years or more. They’ve got better technique and a life time supply of content. This means they post a new item pretty much every day. And so, every few days, when I walk through this gallery, the effect it has on me will depend on how I’m feeling. If I’m feeling as though I’ve been ‘productive’ for the day, I’ll ooh and ahh over their feeds. But, if I haven’t, the opposite is true (and it’s much worse), I get overloaded with guilt. I should work harder, paint more, sketch everyday, try a new medium, experiment more, write more, try poetry, and on and on it goes.
Instead of these incredible artists fuelling a fire of inspiration, it piles on overwhelm. And overwhelm breeds stagnation. I feel stuck. What am I supposed to prioritise? Should I post looser sketches so I can post more often? Should I have a more targeted marketing strategy? Should I just go deep on an idea and ignore it all? What am I supposed to do next?
And then I close Instagram.
It takes a day or two of sitting with my own thoughts before I begin to do something. And it always happens to be something that makes me feel good at the time. Sometimes I have a few days of poetry where I write about people I see on public transport. Other days, I’m so immersed in a novel I read. Sometimes I’ll take a pen out and sketch a tree that I find particularly interesting for some reason. I walk a lot. And, inevitably, new things arise. Perhaps I hit on a new story idea, or a new character. Perhaps I stumble across a new colour combination I’ve never tried before. No matter how ‘pointless’ these whims feel at the time, it turns out that every single bit of of creative effort isn’t wasted. It’s contributing to a bigger picture. In 20 years time, it’ll be called a life’s work.
Every single bit of of creative effort isn’t wasted. It’s contributing to a bigger picture. In 20 years time, it’ll be called a life’s work.
But, this happens SO slowly. Frustratingly so. And it’s only frustratingly slow because I sit in my little Instagram bubble and compare myself with everyone else who seems to be going much faster than me. Instagram is FULL of people producing stuff, constantly, across mediums and styles that are too diverse for my poor little brain to cope with. When I look at this collection of work in the largest art exhibition on the planet, it feels like I’m slow, too deliberate, lagging behind.
But the reality is I’m working really hard. Like many artists, I have a day job that goes from 9-5. When you factor in commutes to and from the office, meals and sleep, that leaves a couple hours a day for ‘something’. And so I use that time, ferociously.
See, what I know to be true now is that there’s no competition in art. Yes, there are awards, and exhibitions, and how much money pieces are selling for, but that’s not art. That’s business.
A while ago, I started the following practice. Every few months, let’s call it 6, I look back at MY old work. I look to see how far, if any, I’ve come. If I’m NOT seeing flaws and mistakes in it, it’s a problem, but that hasn’t happened yet. Life happens, time changes you. Yes, there’s the rote practice of wielding a brush, but time makes some things more important than others. It changes priorities. What’s interesting today isn’t so tomorrow. And that’s not a bad thing.
If creative work is a lifelong pursuit and your expectations of what you will produce are always ahead of your technical ability to produce them, you don’t need external competition to drive you. Your only comparison is yourself.
So keep old work, don’t throw it in the bin, maybe lay off Instagram for a while. Focus on your own unique interpretation of the world. In the end, it’s the world that moves you to create, and we all deserve to see how you interpret it.