We all have internal chatter: a voice, our own voice, talks to us inside our head. This communication we have with ourselves is often about things that trouble us, that we can’t get a handle on. Establishing and maintaining a creative practice often means that our wishes about how we would like to work, what we would like to achieve and how we hope that artmaking ‘feels like’ is very different from how it actually happens.
Nothing is easy. Creative work means that we constantly have to solve problems, and we deal with ‘not knowing’ about things: not knowing what to do next, how to overcome a lack of skills (yes, we are working on developing them…) or why something has not worked. Some people are able to assess such situations as they arise and analyse and evaluate them in reference to inappropriate artmaking tools, and they might also devise a plan to acquire required skills, or improve the working environment. I am not one of these people for whom such analysis and evaluation comes easily. Though I know that improvement sits in exactly the betterment of the factors mentioned above - I get a lot of distraction in my head that relates my not-so-successful artmaking to my person: I tell myself, that I am guilty of not working efficiently enough, that I SHOULD have conquered this artmaking challenge a long time ago, but, because I am lazy I have not. I might even feel that the situation at hand is just the perfect manifestation of how little talent I have got for doing this kind of creative activity (oh… the topic of talent….). Should I - at all - be doing this? I might be wasting my time ….
Negative self-chatter, guilt, and blaming yourself, … we have learnt to resort to these strategies because the emotional pain that comes with them is so hard to bear that we just might try harder. Such strategies are often the result of others wanting us to do things. I recommend not to rely on growing and sustaining an arts practice on negativity about yourself. But, you might say…. “…at least, be… ‘r e a l i s t i c’…you are NOT a great painter…..”! As a justification for our negativity, we believe that we cannot do without realism in a situation of doubt. Negative down-talk diminishes your ability to engage with and feel the colours, the flow of your linework on the paper, to imagine new artwork and respond to what inspires you. When you get negative internal chatter about the value of your person, or your work, or your talent - give yourself the permission to have awareness of it. Denial won’t work. Then, try to disengage from it. The artmaking process has plenty of more useful aspects that you need to concentrate on. De-personalise your challenge: try to trace what is not working to your tools use and techniques, and to your artmaking intentions. And, modify your expectations. What are the exact reason why this picture has not worked? Find out exactly the FACTS of your challenging situation. If you can’t find a solution - try again, and again. Speak to others - they may have incountered the same problem. But: de-personalise the challenge. Make yourself free from guilt, blame, negative attributes - they will only twist what is the real challenge at hand: the materials you work with, the skills you got or not got, the patterns or processes you employ. Which ones do you repeat again and again? You need your personal sensing capacities for seeing and feeling colour, touching of paper with a brush or performing the next movement of your arm to produce a brushstroke on paper.
However, dealing with negative internal chatter is not something you can just switch off. Some of us may have patterns of guilt, blame, of feeling embarrassed that get triggered when something happens - and artmaking situations might not be the only occassions when this occurs. For many creative people, artmaking may mean to be dealing with two challenges: firstly, with the artmaking process, and, secondly, with our own self-awareness in the context of creative undertakings . You could understand your artmaking process as a bit of self-therapy where you try to address this issue, and then congratulate yourself for every step of progress. I have a lot of personal experience with these challenges…. with trying to play music…and the negative self-chatter got in the way. I can report however, that I stubbornly stuck with the pursuit of it…and, I have managed to play and convince myself out of my difficulties. Currently, I am learning to windsurf - and, I am dealing with both, the self-chatter and the learning of skills. Yes, I am making progress….and so can you!
