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I'm not my art
6 years ago
General
For the past 3 years I've spent all of my time and effort trying to improve my art. The feeling of seeing myself improve drove me to spend more and more time drawing, to the point where improving as an artist became the only real goal or purpose in my life. I spent more and more time shut out and ignoring my friends so I could have more time to draw. But, as long as i was improving I didn't really care, as long as I was improving I could gain some since of purpose an meaning out of my work.
But when ever I didn't see that improvement in my work it wasn't just a bad drawing it meant that I was failing at the one thing at that time that gave my life any meaning. If I was a bad artist then it meant I was a failure not just as an artist but as a person. When I graduated I hit a point where no amount of improvement I was making was good enough and I didn't know what to do with myself. Having not realized the above I thought what I needed was to improve even more so I set goals to spend even more time working on still-lifes and drawing studies.
While working on that goal I ended up accidentally getting myself a part time freelance job 3D modeling table top miniatures for some guys web store and ended up taking a break from drawing. I've had a few months away from everything now and having gotten to actually spend some time with friends and do work in the field I'm studying in I've been feeling a lot better.
I don't really know where this leaves this. I guess I just figure if I type this out I have to acknowledge this and hopefully won't just end up falling back in to the same mind set when summer ends and I'm back up at university again.
So I'll tell myself one last time.
"Your self hatred isn't what drives you to keep practicing and improving. It's what keeps you from drawing and makes you stay in bed all day."
"Your dissatisfaction with your art isn't how you've improved so fast. It's what keeps you from sketching as you stair at the blank canvas for another 2 hours."
"Your unreasonable standers for yourself don't make you a better artist. They are the reason you hate starting drawing and never sketch."
"There is meaning in your life no matter what marks you make on the page."
"You are not your art. "
But when ever I didn't see that improvement in my work it wasn't just a bad drawing it meant that I was failing at the one thing at that time that gave my life any meaning. If I was a bad artist then it meant I was a failure not just as an artist but as a person. When I graduated I hit a point where no amount of improvement I was making was good enough and I didn't know what to do with myself. Having not realized the above I thought what I needed was to improve even more so I set goals to spend even more time working on still-lifes and drawing studies.
While working on that goal I ended up accidentally getting myself a part time freelance job 3D modeling table top miniatures for some guys web store and ended up taking a break from drawing. I've had a few months away from everything now and having gotten to actually spend some time with friends and do work in the field I'm studying in I've been feeling a lot better.
I don't really know where this leaves this. I guess I just figure if I type this out I have to acknowledge this and hopefully won't just end up falling back in to the same mind set when summer ends and I'm back up at university again.
So I'll tell myself one last time.
"Your self hatred isn't what drives you to keep practicing and improving. It's what keeps you from drawing and makes you stay in bed all day."
"Your dissatisfaction with your art isn't how you've improved so fast. It's what keeps you from sketching as you stair at the blank canvas for another 2 hours."
"Your unreasonable standers for yourself don't make you a better artist. They are the reason you hate starting drawing and never sketch."
"There is meaning in your life no matter what marks you make on the page."
"You are not your art. "
But in the now, whilst you're making the art and not doing that, when you're not acknowledging your improvements, all you tend to see is the shortcomings. The errors. It's bitter and you twist up inside because you can't see the good in your art, only what feels like a struggle with potential stagnation.
That's when I took a break and managed to rediscover my joy in art, specifically in sketching. When I managed to completely shut my mind up and let myself just... Sketch, sketch any idea's for myself, for my friends as loosely or as quickly as I cared to. It wasn't about making it look good, it was about why I originally pursued art in the first place: To get an idea of characters and scenes from my head onto a canvas to see and share visually. I never used to care how good an artist I was, I only cared that people could accurately see what I was seeing in my head. I only cared about developing ideas and characters.
I'm trying my best, and succeeding I like to think, at engineering that mindset nowa-days. ^^
To draw, sketch and draft up pixelart for the fun of the medium, not to obsess over an impossible agenda I hold myself to.
Best of luck breaking down your own demons, Silver! I'm glad to hear you're making strides towards a better perspective in your craft!
That is the role of the artist in society, but if you just went by the goals of nearly all the artists on this site you would think that the purpose of art was to fill the world with pretty things, because the more pretty things there are in the world then the brighter it is. And while its true that there's nothing wrong with making pretty pictures, as I said art can be so much more than that. Being a "good" artist, and "improving" as an artist isn't just about technical skill.
For me the furry community has always been my reprieve from the high art world to which I still hold a lot of disdain for. So I disagree that the problem is that of focus on technical skill.
To me, the problem that I see both in myself and in others is that art is the only since of identity and worth that a lot of furrys have. It doesn't matter if it's the techical or the meaning, when that is all you are as a person and any failure to live up to the skill or meaningfulness that you demand from yourself make you a failure not just your art.