There are 2 ways to look at the strengths and skills that come innately to us and not to others. The first way is to see it as a competitive advantage and to do everything in our power to leverage it in this hyper-capitalist economy. In this version, the gifted feel ‘entitled’ – as if they have a ‘head start’. Taking advantage of the gift is a priority, and fully in the individual’s control. If you don’t do everything in your power to use that advantage, you’ve failed. It’s a very individualist mindset – every person for themselves and it’s not my problem if you’ve wasted the opportunity to use your strengths.

The second way is to acknowledge that the strengths and weaknesses are unique and individual, but true advantage of them cannot be taken without depending on others. In this mindset, the strengths we each possess are ‘in trust’ – borrowed from the cosmic chaos of the universe and as such, should in some way benefit the universe in return.

All by myself?

It turns out that one of my strengths is visual communication. Out of all of the trillions of possible permutations, the atoms in my body have arranged themselves in a way that has created a natural hyper-sensitivity to colour, movement, line, and shape. But, for me to be able to use those fully, I need others. I need the farmers who grow the cotton that gets turned into my paper that I use to capture that colour, movement, line and shape. I need the paper makers and all of the history of science and the industrial world whose progress helped create the technology that those paper makers use today. I need the sable, whose hair goes into the brushes that I use. I need the trees from which the brush handles are made. I need the craftsmen and women who craft the individual components into what we see as a brush in the store. I need the building blocks of colour chemistry whose knowledge and skill have evolved from the knowledge of early humans – those that ground the first red scarab beetle to make a colour. I could write pages and pages of how the universe’s systems, and my place in the timeline of it all, which is largely a big pile of chaotic luck, have enabled me to use the strengths that I have in the way that I’m doing it in my brief speck of time on earth.

The interconnectedness and interdependence we, as individual permutations of human biology, have on each other and the biological world around us that’s been evolving over millions of years is something that’s easy to forget when we’re struggling with the fear that comes along with sharing our art. But, maybe the idea that we’ve taken from the environment compels us to give something back? Maybe that’s the impetus some of us need, to simply pay back that debt, even if it means no financial gain – the type of gain we’ve come to think is the point of it all. Instead, maybe it’s about giving something back to the timeline so that, maybe one day, something or someone somewhere will use or build upon. Just as we have.

Ask a person from each continent or country of the world what they have for breakfast and you’ll get different answers. There is, of course, the breakfast cereal; popular in Western cultures. There’s congee, a type of savoury rice porridge popular in Asian countries (and Hilton Hotel buffets in Australia). There’s bacon and eggs, popularised in the UK/Scotland, cured meats and cheese in Germany, pastries in France, pancakes in Sweden, tofu and fish in Japan. The variety of foods that cultures have for breakfast are, indeed, without limit.

However, most of us grow up in one place, and so the idea of ‘breakfast’ is relatively fixed by the culture in which we grew up. Breakfast, to most of us, is *supposed* to be from a particular *range* of things. If, in Australia, I served someone tofu and fish for breakfast instead of cereal or bacon and eggs, the reaction borders on revulsion. Likewise, trying to get a ham and cheese toasted sandwich in rural Japan is near impossible – it’s just not what is done.

Cultural norms are not immutable laws

Cultural norms, like breakfast, are not immutable laws. And whilst sticking to cultural norms like breakfast are safe, they also restrict opportunity and creative thinking. And so, if there is no such thing as ‘breakfast food’, what else is a norm and not a law? What defines a book, movie, or music ‘genre’? What themes are ‘allowed’ in children’s books? How many pages are they ‘allowed’ to be? How many words are the allowed to have? Does the sky have to be blue? The grass, green? Is it supposed to rhyme, or not? Am I allowed to prioritise art in my life? Do I have to do the chores before I give myself permission to enjoy myself? Do I need a ‘studio’ to make art, or is the kitchen table just fine?

Cultural norms run rife through all facets of every culture and they can rule our thinking to our detriment. One of the many jobs of the artist is to question them because often, that’s where the most interesting work happens, even if serving tofu and fish for breakfast is a bit scary sometimes – maybe you’ll find someone who likes it. Of course, the opposite may be true, too.

When my first book, Eric the Postie, was signed, I saw it as a fluke – a one-off and something I just got lucky with. I told myself I wouldn’t consider myself a ‘writer’ until there was a second book. First time is luck, second time would be skill, or something like that.

When my second book was signed, Queen Celine, I saw it as another fluke, not proof that I could write for children. “What are the chances?” I said to myself, “2 books written, 2 books published! That’s amazing!” I told myself I wouldn’t consider myself a writer until I ‘tricked’ someone else into it again, just one more time – a third book. That was still true, even when both Eric the Postie and Queen Celine went on to claim CBCA notable prizes in their respective years.

Now, I’ve gone on to write four or five books that have been signed with various publishers. Some have originated from me, others have been a response to a commission – receiving a contract for a book I haven’t even written yet. Do I feel like ‘a writer’ yet? Well, no. Which brings me to some questions – what will it take for that to change, and what is a writer, anyway?

What do I need to do to earn the label?

By any objective measure, five signed books as author/illustrator is success – it’s enough objective data for me to know it’s not dumb luck or a fluke. It’s not liked I’ve duped one publisher either, I’m working across many different ones. But still, there’s something in my mind that will not let me identify as a ‘writer’.

Maybe it’s because we all operate on different scales of success? Maybe it’s because I never went to art school and I’m not ‘credentialed’? But shouldn’t the books themselves be credentials – proof that I can do this? Or maybe I imagine a writer to be someone or something different. Maybe the cultural stereotype of a ‘writer’ – the lonely soul tapping away at a typewriter tucked away in the garret – is so burned in my brain that, if I don’t look or act like that, then I can’t possibly be one.

In the end, what I know is true is that an artist is what they make. Make a painting? Maybe I’m a painter. Sculpt some clay? Maybe I’m a sculptor. Write a children’s book? Just one, or many, maybe that’s enough to start embracing the labels I’ve kept so distant. Maybe if I just keep making work, the labels will take care of themselves? Maybe the labels are for other people and not me? Labels help humans make sense of the world, but do I need them for myself? Maybe I don’t need to concern myself with what label fits me now or in the future, what matters is that I’m having fun and making work that I think matters – that’s when the best work happens anyway, no matter the form it takes or whether anyone else likes it.

I have a rule – no clocks in the studio. Clocks are the enemy of flow. They are such an efficient communication device that even a glance at one tells me if I’m running early or late, ready for lunch or dinner. When I’m catching a train, this efficiency is important. When I’m making art, it’s a recipe for disruption.

Making art, for me, is a shortcut to flow – a state that takes me out of myself and gives me incredible focus. I can sometimes paint for 8 hours straight without a food break when I’m really enjoying the challenge of articulating the thing I can see in my head – when it’s just me and the work. But, when a clock is introduced, a cursory glance immediately brings me back to the commitments of the external world – lunchtimes and break times, chores like getting to the post office before it closes, or realising that it’s getting late and I should really wrap up.

Clocks are an invitation to put down tools and do something else – something more important (at least by the rest of the world’s standards). Yes, persistent flow states aren’t good for me either, and I’ve had to set alarm timers to ensure I remain hydrated and healthy. But, in a world of hyper-distraction and procrastination, keeping clocks out of the studio is one effective but meagre defence in the pursuit of the focus that’s required to make the best work I can.

It’s much easier to tell a group of friends that I have a rule – Fridays and Sundays are for studio work – than to say “I’d prefer to stay home and work in the studio on Fridays and Sundays.” Preferences can be bargained with, “Oh, just this once!” they say, “You work too hard” or “You can’t work all the time”. When it’s a preference, it’s flexible, when it’s a rule, it’s not. People understand rules and they respect them. It’s not that I don’t want to see them, or I’d prefer to stay indoors like a hermit and paint, no, it’s not that at all. It’s just, I have a rule.

Everyone agrees that a choir needs four main vocal ranges. The soprano takes care of the high female range. The alto contributes the low female vocal range. The tenor (hello, Pavarotti) is the high adult male voice, and the bass is the low adult male voice. If one of these roles are missing, the output isn’t as rich or moving as it could be.

A picture book is no different. Sure, there are two names on the cover: the illustrator who draws the pictures and the author who writes the words, but there’s a cast of people who are critical to bringing the book to the world (editor, publisher, designer, printer etc).

When it comes to school and work, though, we seem to have a different mindset. From a very early age, each of us is supposed to be individually wonderful at everything – maths, science, history, geography, art. Right from the beginning, we’re trained toward an individualist mindset. Instead of spending time and energy identifying and honing an individual’s strengths, and teaching us how to work together to produce rich and moving output, as is the default in a choir, we spend exponentially more time and energy teaching kids to be good at everything. If you’re weak at maths, we get tutored for it. But we (or, at least I) don’t go to after school art classes if we can see a kid has a propensity toward expression with colour, shape and line.

A strengths-based approach to growth, paired with a focus on working together, not only means that individuals can spend more time doing what they’re good at (and therefore more likely to enjoy it), but we’re able to create the richest and most moving music, together – something greater than the sum of its parts.

If only I had more space. I’d be able to store more supplies and have a separate place for digital and physical work. I’d keep things in more easily accessible ways so I could maintain my flow state. I’d be able to store different types of paper, and play more expressively with acrylics, and paint in oils because I’d have room to let them dry.

But, I used to say this sort of thing in the previous place we lived, which is much smaller than the one we live in right now. So, compared to that, now I’ve got heaps of space. And so I can’t help but think that maybe what I need isn’t more space, but to think differently about what I’ve got. It seems that no matter how much space we have to make our work, we’ll always want more because the more we have, the more we fill it. The problem with more options is that, beyond a certain number, we tend to be overwhelmed by them and end up not doing anything at all. There’s a name for this, it’s called the Paradox of Choice.

In 2000, a study was conducted about the paradox of choice. Researchers set up a market stall with 24 kinds of jam for sale. They gave samplers a $1 coupon off any jam. On a different day, shoppers saw a market stall with only 6 kinds of jam instead of the 24 from the previous day. The larger display attracted more samplers but ultimately led to fewer sales than the smaller display.

And so, no matter what our situation, maybe it’s better to work within constraints. What can be achieved in a small space, or with limited supplies, may be exactly what we need to unlock our mind and produce work that still answers the questions that the soul asks of us. It’s certainly true of why I began using watercolour over other less portable and messier mediums. Perhaps we are more resourceful if we have fewer resources.

My computer is a swiss-army knife. The guy in the shop where I bought it was right, I can do anything on it! Send and receive email, design and illustrate, manage social media, edit video, listen to a podcast, browse the internet, and stay up to date with the latest news. It’s one device to rule them all, except, there’s just one thing it’s not very good at, and that’s helping me focus.

The computer, the device I do almost all of my work on, is one massive distraction machine. And distraction fuels procrastination. So, being just a keyboard shortcut away from anything else when it’s time to do difficult, deep, thoughtful work, is really unhelpful.

I find that the times that I feel most productive are when I’m not using a computer. When I’m ‘in my studio’: in front of a piece of paper, using pencils and brushes to make things. There’s no ‘ding’, no ‘alerts’, no keyboard shortcuts, no undo. It’s me, physics, and time and it’s the shortest path to deep, fulfilling spells of focussed work. I slip into a flow state very easily when I’m away from the computer.

But computers aren’t going anywhere, and I don’t think designers of computers or social media are working on ways to help me focus. In fact, the opposite is true. So I guess it’s up to me.

Write and wrong

Writing on a computer is difficult. When I write on the computer, I’m all over the place in the way that I think. I skip from one subject to another, from paragraph to paragraph. It’s as if even though my brain is in one mode/app, it’s still works as though I’m opening all the applications in my brain.

So, how to protect myself against the temptation of all the other things I could be doing, like being sucked into YouTube rabbit holes or replying to emails in between paragraphs?

What I’ve learned is that computer writing is not the same activity as writing physically, even though, on the surface, they look the same – composing sentences and paragraphs with words. I’ve learned that if I write the first draft on a laptop, I’ll need to redraft and edit it many more times than if I start with a physical process. So, I’ve developed a compromise – outline in physical, then execute in digital. It’s like when a TV chef has all their portions chopped neatly and arranged in front of them so they can just get on with the cooking when the camera’s rolling. Writing the outline in a notebook, with a good ol’ fashioned pen, means I can hit a computer keyboard with a lot more structure and focus. I can work in incremental chunks toward the right goal. Once I get through the first 20mins or so of temptation to do anything else but write, I’ve found a flow state. When I’m there, the swiss-army knife doesn’t exist. It’s just me and the writing.

In one of my first jobs I had a crappy manager. They were disorganised, impolite, inefficient, and well, generally, unkind. I wasn’t happy there and suffice to say when the time came, I moved on.

It’s easy to look at an experience like that – one that lasted 2 years – and think, “What a waste of time. I could’ve done so many more things that would have been better for my physical and mental health, as well as my career.” But that experience was transformative in one very important way; I started to understand what bad looked like.

Knowing what bad looks like means we’re still learning. In subsequent jobs since my first, I’ve filtered potential workplaces based on the signals I saw in my first one. I know the sorts of behaviours that denote disorganized, impolite, inefficient and unkind workplaces, and when I see those behaviours, I walk the other way. Not only that, but I ensure my own behaviour doesn’t mimic those things either.

What’s this got to do with art? Well, making bad work in art is inevitable. However, to know what bad looks like, we have to take the leap and make the work, even at the risk of getting it wrong. We have to make the work in order to learn from it and apply it to the next work. I’ve made many mistakes in my pursuit of expressive, joyous watercolour work. I have pages and pages of flat, boring, muddy washes and paintings. But with every painting I complete, I learn what not to do next time, which makes next time’s work marginally better – and so the inevitable loop of the infinite game rolls forward.

Even though my expectations will always exceed my capability, when I look back at my first work (just like looking back at my first job) I realise how far I’ve come – the things I’ve learned to avoid as well as the things I want to repeat. Making mistakes, after all, is just the process of figuring it out, whether that’s work, art, or life.

There seems a universal law – the more you risk, the greater the reward. It governs everything we do from the obvious – gambling – to the less obvious – love.

Putting ‘yourself’ out there takes courage because it means we’re making ourselves vulnerable. Vulnerable to attack. Vulnerable to critique. Vulnerable to making mistakes that people notice. It’s much easier to make mistakes in private, when nobody is watching. After all, we still learn from those mistakes. The question is, if we reduce the risk of failing by doing it privately, is the reward – the lessons we learn – also greatly reduced?

In an age where digital communication is creating the space to protect us from vulnerability (we can craft the perfect text before attempting to communicate with another), those seeking vulnerability, or those who are comfortable with it, are becoming rare. And if there’s one another universal law in this capitalist economy it’s that scarcity creates value.

So it follows that if this is true – bigger risks equals bigger reward and scarcity creates value – then isn’t making art and sharing it widely, aka, being an artist, the most valuable thing we can do for ourselves? We stand to gain immensely from being the few who remain comfortable with vulnerability because through that vulnerability we learn more about ourselves and our place in the world than doing the opposite.

The thing about being repeatedly vulnerable is that once you’ve experienced the reward for doing it, it’s not so scary anymore because what it teaches you is the biggest reward of all – how to be comfortable with being vulnerable in the first place. That’s when the exciting stuff begins.