Done is better than perfect.

How do you talk to yourself, your younger self. . . The one that knows you are meant to be an artist? 

I’m going to get a little intimate here. There are three days left to my 30 day journey, and I woke up to heavy rain and thunder outside my bedroom window. Cozy, lending to a feeling of reflection. When I woke up this morning, it felt as if water had drenched my body, and was being wrung out slowly. Tired, yet new. I felt some sort of expectation that I should feel differently than I did on day one, when I started all of this.

Don’t get me wrong. I definitely feel different. I feel more myself, and more connected with what I want. But I don’t know if I feel better. There’s still something in me that yearns for the approval from others, just in a different way. Instead of seeking the “good job” from my employer, I now seek feedback from the work I publish online. There’s higher stakes, it feels like, and I’m on somewhat of a ticking clock.

I don’t feel fireworks, drums beating, cheers in the distance. It’s just another day that I wake up with the thought:

I want to be an artist.

And I want to give that a fair shot. My entire life, I have devoted myself to others. I have devoted myself to giving hours and hours of my time, all of my energy, to helping someone else succeed and make money doing what they wanted to do. What about what I wanted? So here I am, giving it a try.

I want to be an artist.

It’s like the thought circles me. Now, I can talk back to that thought, and say, “You’re doing it. You are waking up in the morning and are now focused on your creative career.”

I wonder what would happen if I went back in time and showed my younger self my business plan. My little charts and graphs and progress trackers. I would probably make her entire day. Still, something today causes me to slow down, (probably the cloudy weather and rain), and reflect on what I’ve done so far. And if it will be enough.

Naturally, as I create new work, I learn through the process. Today I woke up feeling like it’s difficult for me to publish work when I have in my head a method for improvement. It feels like I don’t want to publish imperfect work. Though as I sit typing this, I look above my computer monitor. A handwritten note on ripped notebook paper is pinned to the wall.

Done is better than perfect.

Friendly (2020). Charcoal, oil paint, gesso, and paper texture on stretched canvas.

When did I forget that? The thought returns to me: There are three days left to my 30 day journey. I feel as if there’s something riding on the other end of it. I want to look back at this month and feel proud of what I produced. Instead, it feels like I did more planning, preparing, researching, and soul searching than artwork making.

The larger, more wise part of myself knows that that is necessary work. The louder, more sensitive part of myself worries that it’s not enough. But this is how it works. It’s scary to take this risk. To say no to my salary and yes to my time in creating meaningful artwork. So even though I wake up with fears and doubts, afraid about the prospect of it not working out. I do it anyway. I do it scared.

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My first upcoming art market is on May 10th, 2024. I also made my first art sale since this journey began. I know that I have accomplishments, yet some part of myself expects that accomplishment to feel like a BANG. As if it’s supposed to be big, bright, and undeniably different. That I am supposed to feel undeniably different.

At the end of the day, I have to allow myself these moments of humanness. I have to allow myself to breathe, and to be the person, not the mask. Growing up, I was always told that perfection was an actual tangible accomplishment. Though I now no longer hold that belief, (because it’s just absolutely absurd), some small part of me is still scared to be seen stumbling. Trying and failing.

I’ve realized the key to being a successful artist is to build your tolerance of failure. It’s important not to get attached to the work you make. You have to throw something together, and not care if it lands. If it doesn’t work out, you scrap it and start again. The value lies in the artist, not in the artwork. The artwork is just a reflection of the artist’s value. So when something you’re making doesn’t work out, try to remember that. 

I remember reading once that in ancient Greece, they had the concept of “The Genius.” The artwork was believed not to belong to, or to be because of, any one person, not even the artist. Instead, the artist was simply a vessel for “The Genius” to speak through. And if you made bad artwork, it wasn’t your fault. You just had a bad Genius. It also meant if you created great artwork, no one kissed your feet and called you amazing. You simply had a good Genius at the time. It helped keep people humble.

Anyway, sometimes I think about how simple life would be if it were like that. We all prescribe way too much meaning to the feedback we get from others in our life. I'd like to say that it would be nice if we didn’t value other’s feedback so much, but isn’t that, in essence, the core of community? And we all need each other. So we do, in some way, need that feedback.

Maybe let’s just call it gravity. We need to be our own source of gravity. You can listen to the feedback of others, but you don’t let the feedback pull the ground from under us. Instead, you are grounded in ourselves, regardless of the opinions of others.

So here I go. Back into the ring of creation. Before I go, I want to speak this into existence. For myself, yes, but I wonder if it could also be of use to you. Here are some affirmations for today:
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I let go of judgment.

I am okay with starting over again.

Done is better than perfect.