Artists: Don’t Chase Perfection, Chase Inner Truth
The best art exists in the absence of insecurity. When the words, beats or brush strokes form themselves, as if not from you but kind of through you. ❤
There’s an everpresent question that needles the hearts of many creatives: Was it good enough? No one can freeze themselves into an anxiety-funk like artists usually can.
But in countless beautiful artistic callings, one thing is for sure: A different criteria of quality exists within each of us. What counts as quality isn’t exactly easy to define in art. If perfection is a standard you demand of yourself everyday, you may be iced into procrastination. This is a state where expectations shackle you so heavily, it becomes a relief to put away the very art that brightens your life.
So I’m writing about creating art as a witness. A catcher of ideas or beams of inspiration. This is a mindset where the truth you say matters more than how you say it. I’m going to first express some truths about my own calling: writing. I’ve experienced these lessons to be true. As you read, I request you to accept what connects with you and leave aside what doesn’t.
Each First Attempt Is Both Valuable & Terrible
People put a lot of pressure on ‘how good you are’ as an artist. By good; they usually mean rightness, quality, correctness. But hidden in how you say something, lies the bareness of what you’re saying. And at your best, it often comes from the heart, from a true part of yourself. Something you really felt and experienced — your original concept. And that’s always good. It cannot be bad if you expressed what you really believed and what you knew for sure. The very fact that you attempted to create something is a honest win for yourself. But while every attempt can be good in meaning; the way you expressed it can be wrong.
Every art piece has to be tweaked a million little times till its volume is turned all the way up. Until it’s strong enough to hit people with the magnitude you hope for.
This way, we can say a first draft is both good and terrible. The goodness and the value of the inner message is retained. But the expression usually is, in the beginning, sort of comically terrible for most artists. But this is an opportunity to improve and it is an important part of your artistic journey. You slowly learn to refine yourself and shape your art better.
The Key To Great Expression
We’ve gone beyond ‘rightness’ and ‘perfection’ to connecting to our heart and soul. What we really mean and feel. And that’s really the key to what you create: do you understand it? Do you channel the feeling it expresses?
No matter the art form, when we go purely on feeling and expression, I believe we catch things from the universe. The best art exists in the absence of insecurity. When the words, beats or brush strokes form themselves, as if not from you but kind of through you.
That’s the flow state, but it isn’t a purple cow. It’s not a rare gift; a one time opportunity. This can happen a lot more. And this is the moment you might realise that the quality and you were looking for is finally present. Quality is something that often arrives when you’ve practiced for so long that you’ve forgotten about getting it right, and are more intent on telling your story.
In our art, our gratitude for life and our dreams for the future, there’s an important emotion involved. There is a soul within who lives and marvels at it all. It’s the very place many ideas come from. It’s there, trust me, it just takes a little bit of patience and trying to discover it.
