The artist's ego is a tricky thing. It tends to live at either end of the spectrum between "my work is garbage" or "my work is brilliant" - often it's both at the same time. It's no wonder artist's are often portrayed as flamboyant, flaky, and just a little bit crazy. 

While in the process of building this website, I was combing through some older works. Works like "Lead Thee Weeping" and "Song Sparrow" which have long since left the studio. I didn't have the confidence back then to know these were really good paintings. I kept working to create better paintings, taking the advice of many different peers, which steered my works towards different styles. More control, better or more accurate representation of the subject. Better composition. On and on....... But in my quest for betterment, I lost my voice. I lost the quality that made these paintings special. 

I look at these paintings, and many of my other earlier works today, and wonder what the heck I was thinking, and why I didn't have the confidence to just stay the course in this more impressionistic, or expressive, style. I love these early works now and wish I could paint like that today. 

The opposite is also true though. I look at some of my work that I thought was brilliant at the time, and wonder what the heck I was thinking. Some of those works are truly cringe worthy. So now, when I've finished a painting which I think I've done a really good job with, I wonder if it's just my artist ego. Is it truly a good painting? Why is it good? Maybe it isn't. I second guess and overthink my thoughts.

I hear so many artists expressing the same things, so I know this must be a common phenomenon within the arts world. I hear very accomplished artists, who I admire, express doubt in their own work. It's no wonder though. We artists can do a dozen really good paintings, and then the turkeys come out one after another, and we feel like somehow, overnight, we've completely lost our ability to paint. 

I think part of the lack of confidence in ones art stems from outside influences. How often do we observe ugly work being given high praise, and beautiful work being totally ignored? Family and friends will (usually) always like what you do, even if it isn't very good. Art instructors often offer lots of praise and encouragement rather than kind honesty, so it is very hard to have an unbiased, outside opinion of your work. How do we know if our ego is being over or under confidence? How do we know when it's telling us the truth? Does it even matter?

I have reposted an old blog post written at the time I made "A Dream Of Joy And Sadness".  See the previous post "Telling Stories". 

Last night we attended a Home Routes house concert with Kev Corbett, who is a folk singer and storyteller. There was a line in one of his songs which made reference to "a bunch of Group Of Seven trees on the shore". I instantly knew the image his song was trying to paint and how that tied into his story. The expressiveness of Corbett's songs and stories have a certain quality I want in my paintings. Some of his songs were able to reach down inside me to grab hold of my soul and give it a good shake....wake it up. At one point, I had a well of tears building in my eyes. If a story can do that to me in a living room full of strangers, you know it has real depth....serious expression.

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Republished from my previous blog. 

I get greater value from books about art ideas, theories, and other artists thought process. I want to talk a little bit more about that and how those kinds of books can have more influence on my work than technique or how-to based books. I have just started reading some of John Ruskin's writings which is opening up ideas for me, which have been sitting just beneath the surface but I wasn't fully coming to grips with yet.
He has a section where he compares painting to poetry, which really piqued my interest because I share this idea. While many painters compare the similarity between painting and music, for me I see it as more closely following poetry. What Ruskin was talking about was how art patrons seemed to favour paintings which portray the world exactly as it is, but if the highest ideal of art is to imitate what already exists, why not just have a mirror on the wall, or open the window and see what is there in front of you. 
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He further goes on to say how if poetry just stated what exists we would not be moved by it. Compare "the sky had an orange glow on the horizon with clouds building"', with "clouds billowed up in a crimson sky like the lust of new lovers". The first is just a descriptive sentence that may be more suitable for a news report - nothing to make it endearing and exciting. The second, poetry filled with emotive suggestion that engages the imagination.  Without the heart and passion of the author putting into words a simile of what he feels in his heart, rather than the facts before him, there could be no poetry. The same thing exists in art.
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Ruskin goes on to compare the paintings which imitate nature truthfully belonging to a class of historical documentation in painting. The other, where the painter embellishes the truth for emotive suggestion belongs to poetry. It is the artist trying to capture how the subject moves him, or makes him feel that leads to more meaningful art. This is the thing, the poetry, I strive for in my work. I am not in interested in having the viewer look at a painting and say "oh yes, this is Mount so and so painted from the third viewpoint in mid-September at 7:00 pm". I want them to think, "I remember that warm autumn day when my lover and I strode hand in hand along the mountain lakeshore, and the late day sun set the rocks aglow to which they mirrored a song welling up in my heart".
My husband is my sounding board and confidant for all aspects of my life. In art we do not always see eye to eye. He comes to art without any formal understanding of it beyond simply what appeals to him, and what he has thought the measure of excellency in art was - namely being the ability to realistically capture what exists. How many times have you heard someone in amazement exclaim the painting looks just like a photograph, as if that is the defining measure which makes it great. I have over the years been swaying his ideas on that aesthetic as a measurement of arts merit. 

My argument has always been, how hard it is it to reproduce that which exists? You look and put down a visual truth as it exists as surely as a child tracing the outline of their own hand (not to say there isn't considerable skill involve or to suggest the execution is as easy as tracing). But to translate what you see into the emotions and spiritual attachment you feel towards it is a far more difficult task. You have no roadmap telling you how to do it. Take all the workshops you can, read all the technique books you want, and you will be no closer to being able to put your emotions (as it relates to your subject) down on canvas. That is why painters like Degas can create such a strong emotion in me that I'm likely to fight back tears in the presence of his work. 
That is why contemporary painters like Carolyn Anderson, Michael Workman, or Quang Ho, who seem to capture the emotional essence of a subject without realism, can move and inspire me more than the highly realist approach of others.  High realism is easy to understand. There is nothing left for the viewer to do but look and acknowledge the faithful reproduction of that which exists. The familiar and known is easy to understand. Poetry and emotion, on the other hand requires engagement from the viewer. They need to apply themselves to interpret the image and fill in the story as it relates to them. In creates a deeper level of engagement, just as poetry requires a deeper level of thought to interpret what the writer is really saying. 

I do want to say that I don't discount the hard work of those artists working in the realist genre. The mastery of technique and the patience to work in this style is impressive; and I often think if I had the discipline to study this way of painting I may not struggle so much at the canvas to lay down the poetry inside. But then I think having any kind of calculated approach would be a barrier from that internal truth which I am interested in trying to portray. Perhaps it is the very struggle to express the emotion which gets to the heart of it in the first place. 

In just a few short pages, Ruskin has set to words what I am striving for; of what I understood in my heart but couldn't articulate well. There are other books, such as Robert Henri's 'The Art Spirit', which are able to generate a much deeper understanding of what I am trying to achieve at the canvas in a more profound way than technique based books. 

​I have had a block which has lasted for over a year, and almost derailed my entire career. I have beat myself up horribly over this fact. The more I stressed about it, the worse it got, until one day I just said, “I’m done”. But I knew in the back of my head that was the furthest from the truth. You see, I’ve always painted or drawn. Yes, I’ve had periods of rest where I wasn’t very active, but that deep seated desire to create has always been there niggling away at me, making me feel incomplete if I wasn’t painting. 

For me, before my slump hit, I had an empty nest and a husband working long hours, living in the country in almost isolation – too far away for friends or family to just drop by. I had tons of time to myself, and this made it easy to get studio time almost daily. (I took the weekends off.) Then my husband was laid off and transitioned to retirement. We got a new dog. We moved to the city close to friends and family. 

Suddenly all those hours of solitude had vanished. If I was in the studio, I felt guilty I wasn’t paying attention to the new dog, the at home husband, cooking, cleaning, or out visiting friends and family. If I was doing all those other things, I was getting frustrated at not finding enough time to be in the studio. I couldn’t seem to find a happy balance. 

Today, I’ve decided to give myself a break and quit stressing about it all. I do not have to produce 30 top quality paintings a month. I don’t even have to produce that many a year. I wonder what the storage rooms of some of these daily painters looks like. I know what my painting storage looks like! 

Even if I could produce a painting a day, I couldn’t sell that many. What happens is that I end up contributing to the environmental mess the world is in, by landing many of those paintings in the landfill. The realization of the environmental impact of needing to produce like I was a robotic factory, has helped me get over all the anxiety I have had over the past few years. 

Wouldn’t a dozen good, sellable paintings a year be better for the world? I know it is certainly more doable for what my life demands right now and has made it easier for me to relax and enjoy my painting time guilt free. 

Despite the message the only way to improve is to paint daily, I think the opposite has been true for me. A slower pace has given my brain time to catch up with all the learning I have done over the past few years. With fewer painting days, my skills have improved. I have more time to think about and plan a painting, rather than rushing in to get it done. Win, win!

We do not have to buy into this all or nothing scenario. If the message you are hearing over and over causes you anxiety, know that you do not have to adopt it. Define your own parameters for your artist’s life and create from a place of contentment.