Art & Fear

This week you'll be reading an excerpt from the book Art and Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland.

Select three quotes from the excerpt that you can relate to and type them into a post on your blog. Maybe they remind you of something that's happened to you in an art class or something you've seen someone else experience. Write about how you relate to the quote and include as many specific stories as you can.

"For every artist who has developed a mature vision with grace and speed, countless others have laboriously nurtured their art through fertile periods and dry spells, through false starts and breakaway bursts, though successive and significant changes of direction, medium, and subject matter"(27). 

~~~This quote is reassuring, because it is a reminder that artists all have different processes, and you shouldn't be worried by what those around you are accomplishing. So when the artist next to you is churning out ten unified pieces a week, and you only have a smattering of jumbled ideas, don't give up, and don't feel inferior.

"To demand perfection is to deny your ordinary (and universal) humanity, as though you would be better off without it. Yet this humanity is the ultimate source of your work; your perfectionism denies you the very thing you need to get your work done. Getting on with your work requires a recognition that perfection itself is (paradoxically) a flawed concept" (31).

~~~ I've definitely had many battles with my perfectionism over the years. In lots of mediums, I've gotten over it. It helps me to "messy up" the whiteness of the paper right at the start, because otherwise I get caught in a very careful bubble. Last term in ceramics, I made a conscious effort to subdue my perfectionism a little. It worked out really well, because I produced a lot of pieces, and I was happy with essentially all of them. I let myself be spontaneous, poking holes out of chunky candle holders, and also let myself add fine details, like the cut-out sections in my vase, or the shapes on my leaf platter. I'm glad I didn't get stuck, like I did on my pufferfish last year.

"What is sometimes needed is simply an insulating period, a gap of pure time between the making of your art, and the time when you share it with outsiders"(40).

~~~ I'm often uncomfortable showing my art to others. Sometimes because it's personal, sometimes because it's not personal enough, and I feel like people will be bored. I don't worry too much about the audience while making art. But once it's actually being viewed, I worry that people can't follow my train of thought. With what I've made this term, I'm worried about something different. Although I've had a blast painting my pottery, sketching my still life, working on my seal painting, I feel like my pieces don't "mean" anything, and I worry that the audience will think my work is juvenile.