I have a confession to make – I’ve never suffered from creative block. What’s my secret? I think it’s acknowledging that creative block doesn’t exist. “What?!” I hear you say. Please, bear with me.
One of my favourite thinkers is Seth Godin. He’s been running a blog for years and posts Every. Single. Day. They aren’t long posts, in fact, they’re super short and snappy, but the ideas within them are deeply profound. Well, at least to me. It’s fair to say he’s been a significant influence on the way I approach my artistic work. To say he’s ‘changed my life’ is probably not overstating it.
In 2011, he posted an article called, “Talkers’ Block.” It’s a humorous look at why people seem to accept the notion of Writer’s Block with ease, but no one ever seems to be lost for words when they’re speaking.
He writes:
The reason we don’t get talker’s block is that we’re in the habit of talking without a lot of concern for whether or not our inane blather will come back to haunt us. Talk is cheap. Talk is ephemeral. Talk can be easily denied. […] Writer’s block isn’t hard to cure. Just write poorly. Continue to write poorly, in public, until you can write better.
At about the same time, I was reading Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland which was making me reflect very deeply on why I ever stopped making art after high-school.
Whether it’s fate or just my habit of reading widely, the ideas from a marketer and two artists came together, and 2014 became a formative year for me. I wasn’t blocked from making art at all; it was just two stupid things: I de-prioritised art over other things, and I was full of fear of making work I was embarrassed by.
Art won’t make itself. You have to take the leap and make it real. You need to put actual strokes to actual canvas or real pencils on real paper. And yes, it’s scary. And it’s hard because our brains are wired for laziness. At the basic level of survival, if we’re safe from sabre-tooth tigers, we can rest easy. It’s much easier to sit in front of Netflix and just think about how you know you could easily make that great painting or drawing at any time. It’ll happen one day.
Fear makes its own distracting habitat
A few years ago, my evenings looked a little like this. I used to sit on the couch and watch some TV series that I was thoroughly enjoying at the time. This activity, whilst mind-numbing, wouldn’t occupy all my brain space. While I was watching, my attention would drift, and I was able to dream up an image, or a character, or a landscape that I could be painting instead. At that time, thinking about it was enough. It satisfied me. I knew I could actually DO it if I really wanted to. But there’s only an hour or so at night after work and dinner and then it’s bed-time. The last thing I wanted to do was get all my art supplies out. By the time I did that, then there’d only be 30 mins left before bed and that wasn’t nearly enough time to make art.
There’s no creative block hiding in the cupboard
Then, one day, by reading Art and Fear and Seth Godin’s blog in close succession, I was inspired to act. I actively decided to change a habit.
On Sunday night, I got my art supplies out. Just a notebook and a pencil and eraser. It took all of 5 minutes (not the 30 minutes I imagined it would). I put these art supplies right by the couch where I knew I sat each night after dinner. On Monday, I used them while having the TV on in the background. I drew horrible, terrible things. Things I will never show anyone. After half an hour, I looked at the page and it was a mess. I wanted to erase the whole damn thing. Instead, I flipped the page and started again. The second page was better. Things began to resemble a little of what I could see in my head. It was still terrible, but less terrible.
Then it was bedtime.
The next night, after dinner, I casually flicked through the notebook again. I looked over my previous work. Most of it was still rubbish, but there was something in a particular drawing I did that gave me the motivation to refine it a bit. So, I started drawing a better version of it. In fact, I drew three better versions of it. Each one better than the previous. By the end of that one hour, I had something compelling enough to want to colour it in. But, it was bedtime again.
On night number three, I dug out my watercolour set. I was given it for a Christmas present two years earlier. I was so ‘fearful’ of producing bad work it sat idle in a draw for all that time. But not this night. I had a drawing I was happy with, so I started to colour it in. The result? I completely stuffed up the whole thing. I mean, a complete disaster. I wanted to throw the entire thing out, along with all my art supplies. In the bin, forever. Anyway, by that time it was time to go to bed again.
Wearing armour for overcoming fear
This went on for weeks. I did a little bit, hated most of it, but found something small in everything I did each time. Whether that was a particular gesture, body position, colour choice. There was always something that made it motivating to continue.
See, what no one tells you is that an art practice is generative. The more you do it, the more you begin to learn to see things to improve. That gives you more motivation to improve those things and the snowball gets larger and larger until, well, you begin to identify as an artist. It took me three years of this practice, a 3-book deal with a publisher, and some industry recognition before I started to think, “Hmm, maybe I am an artist?” Only now am I starting to truly feel comfortable and value my own work in this way. And, it’s still not good enough. I’ve still got a long way to go.
Creative block is a mythical beast
There’s no mystical ‘blocking’ force out there. The universe isn’t out to stop you making stuff. It turns out that Seth is dead right – It’s quite simply fear. Fear to be found out for the imposter that you believe to be but that no one else recognises.
In the end, the only difference between an artist and someone who isn’t an artist is that the artist does the work, even when that work is terrible and it feels as though there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. Note to self: there’s always light, just show up every day and do the work to find it.