This episode is for you:
If you have an artistic practice
if you often feel like you need to "catch up" or "go back and fill in your holes” before you can move forward .
If you are looking for some clarity about where you are on the map and where your artistic practice needs to go next.
So this is the first episode of a podcast- that I have been iterating for like- a year. And ironically- I have done a "first episode" several times. Part of that is the learning curve of doing something new- I was trying to get to 8 episodes before I released them in order to give myself a head start with consistency once it came out- but what kept happening is- I would get to like- say episode 3- and then I would be getting better- so I would want to redo episodes 1 and 2 and then- I'm sure you can imagine how that went. Anyhow- here we are, and I have decided that since I have SO MANY first episodes ready to go- That I'm just going to strat where I am, and release them as a series on "beginnings" It's metta. I'm going to start talking about starting. Starting where you are in your artistic practice.
I know some people dont like the term artist but we have to have something to refer to who I am talking about so let me say I am talking about artist as an archtype- someone who creates and makes things. I could say creative person, but I like artists. because I feel like it speaks to the idea that you have to have your creative practice. ANYONE with a practice that you hope improves your skills toward mastery and also produces work. You could be a visual artist, writer, performance artist, culinary artist, digital artist, media artist, something I am not thinking of and also anycombination of interdiscplinary work. You could do it for money or not- but one of the things is that you have a deep unending ache or pining to make things and if you don't do it- you won't be ok. I do think there are creative humans who can enjoy doing creative activities but don't have that same psycho- spiritual NEED to have a creative practice. many artists exist on a spectrum between making a living totally from art they want to make to having a day job completly unrelated to art - and they are all still do or die artists. Having a creative practice is not just a wouldn't that be fun kind of thing. It is fun, it has to have fun involved, but its more than that too.
That feeling of needing to catch up, of being behind, its deep for alot of us one of the hardest things for an artistic practice is being able to know where we are on the map- without feeling like there are things you should be "catching up" with before you can be moving forward.
I'm pretty sure this feeling starts pretty early for a lot of us. I have a memory from kindergarten. We would have work to do- mainly coloring in a picture of a letter- personified with some character- like mr T had giant teeth. I liked doing it- but after coloring time- was free time to play with the stuffed animals. I also loved loved that, but coloring in that worksheet ALWAYS took me the longest. So by the time I finished, like usually as soon as the teacher took my paper- she would call all the kids into a circle and wed be doing the next group thing. And so, I was never getting any free time. So one time, I remember being like "today I dont care about coloring, I want to play with that big teddy bear I never get to and I just scribbled some crayon all over the letter guy and handed it in. The teacher wouldn't take it. She was used to my multicolor, careful pages that I always did. She sent me back to the table and made me start over. I knew from the coloring of other kids hung on the wall- she let them just use one color and go all outside the lines. That the one I had just handed her looked just like theirs. I remember that day with a broken little heart. The teacher was right to not let me dumb down my work. The place where she was wrong- was in starting circle time as soon as I finished every day. She should have seen the time that was needed for me to do the work I was imagining, and then found a way to add free time AFTER that. When I used to lead backpacking trips, we were always careful to make sure breaks lasted a little while AFTER the last person caught up- because it was easy to say- they are here- lets go- often the last person - they need the break the most.
That feeling of needing to catch up, and then not getting a break when we get there, thats draining. And the only way I see past it - is to stop trying to catch up. Start where you are, and give yourself your own breaks- your own timeline. If you start a journal in March, start it in March. Don't spend all of March trying to go back and fill in what happened in January and February. When we do that- we get to April and guess what- we're trying to fill in what happened in March- if we even got that far. That's exhausting. Start where you are.
It's time for the playdate. Thats what I'm going to call the send off section of A Wilder Wonder. I'm going to give you an idea, a prompt if you will, to offer something that might help you open up and expand your artistic practice in some way. Normally I kind of hate prompts, they feel like extra work and I'm not a fan of that- but these are meant to be used WITHIN the work you are already doing. I think we need to look at bringing in new skills and techniques based on where YOUR work really wants to go. It's just that the clearer the objective of your work, the clearer the path to it can get. so here goes. The 5 Whys.
Make a list of 5 of your artistic heros. For each one- write their name and then the word why. Ask yourself why you love their work. Answer that question. Then ask it again. Repeat this five times for each of your heros. Then choose 5 or so of these anwers and make a personal manifesto. Then put your own work up against your manifesto. Where are you already succeeding? How can you use your manifesto like a map to point your current work in the right direction?
A wilder Wonder is sponsered by- Substack. Not the platform but by the wonderful people who are already forming community there with me. Please Join us! If you have the funds- you can support the show and be a part of the community with a paid subscription. If the funds are not there- I still really want you to be a part of this project- and you can get a free subscription which will give you all the updates and let you know every time a new episode comes out!
START WHERE YOU ARE