“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”

- Vincent van Gogh

It seems to me that a lot of time, energy, and general PR has gone into dictating what an artist is, what it feels like to be an artist, and what a creative lifestyle looks like. To me, feeling like an artist is a lot like having a birthday. I’m one year older, but I don’t feel older - I don’t actually feel like an artist. To be more precise, I don’t feel the way I thought I should or would. 

In my younger days as an art student, I thought I should be dramatic, entrancing, melancholy, and romantic, but I just felt like myself - which is none of those things. I am practical and deliberate and I’ve never dramatically entranced anyone. Well, there was that one time in high school but that was pure luck and it’s never happened again. This lack of feeling a specific way led to feeling like an imposter and I wasn’t a very good artist either because I hadn’t put in the effort. I was too busy waiting to feel this certain way.  Which was the excuse I used to not make art for a lot of years. 

A web cartoonist that I follow and adore, “Underpants and Overbites,” recently published a comic about all the ways she went about trying to “be” an artist.  From drinking heavily, being sad, listening to the “right” music, and wearing the “right” clothes, to then finally just doing the work and making art. 

The cartoon resonates so much because to me, making art just feels like work, albeit rewarding and engaging work, but work nonetheless. It wasn’t until I left my expectations behind and started drawing consistently for five minutes each day that my skills began to improve. I was enjoying drawing for the sake of drawing; I wasn’t trying to “be” anything or anyone.

If I were to describe what it feels like to be an artist today, I’d say I feel more like a scientist, or maybe what I imagine being a scientist feels like. I’m disciplined; I go to my garage studio space at a specific time each day and I work for a scheduled amount of time. I am dedicated. I invest my time in practicing my craft and in continuing education by watching tutorials, reading articles, taking online classes, and doing self-guided master studies of works by my favorite artists. I experiment a lot. I try the new techniques I’ve learned. I play with new color palettes that are outside of my comfort zone. Sometimes those experiments end up feeling like magic because something awesome and unexpected happens. And maybe that’s where the enchanting part lies, because it’s really hard to remain practical and down to earth in that fizzy, excited, fuck-yeah moment.

The overall point I’m trying to make, if you will bear with me for a moment longer, is this:

Please take what you can from my mistakes. Don’t let a lack of a feeling, an identity, someone else’s identity of you, or the idea that you are not creative or talented stop you from trying to do creative things. I spent FIFTEEN YEARS not making one single brush stroke.  Then I picked up a ballpoint pen for five minutes a day during an Instagram #inktober challenge. I extended that challenge for three months making up my own drawing prompts for just five minutes a day. Soon I was carving out 10 minutes, and then 15. I was drawing more intricate and detailed pictures and skiving off my work duties to do it!  I started getting up an hour earlier to draw and paint before going to work, because work was totally catching on. That was three years ago, and now I would rather paint than shower or really anything else, and I will take those 15-minute moments wherever I can find them.

I did all of this because I rediscovered a raw joy in painting that I couldn’t get anywhere else. It’s not a euphoric joy, or a red-hot, burning, sexy joy. It’s a calm, focused, peaceful, steady, overarching joy; it’s a freedom from all that binds us. I sincerely wish this joy for every single being on our planet.  

It is my belief that all you need to discover this joy is patience and kindness towards yourself and five minutes a day to practice and learn, or re-learn, your thing. Whatever that thing might be.  

What kind of creative endeavor could you engage in for five minutes today?

Could you draw a leaf? Could you paint a rainbow with your kids' watercolor set? Could you dust off the Ukulele you got at the beginning of the pandemic and practice a few scales? Could you dig out your sewing machine, macrame, knitting, crochet, or embroidery kit? Could you go to the bead shop and spend $3 and make something over the weekend? Could you learn some sweet new dance moves from YouTube? Whittle a stick from the park? Sculpt a vase from PlayDoh? Paint a rock and leave it to be found by another hiker? Write a poem or haiku? Start an outline for a short story? Make geometric designs in the sand? We could be here all day and we are wasting precious time, and I think I've made my point. Go, be free, create.

I’d love to know what you did! Please comment below to help inspire others.

~Jill

#theworldneedsmoreart