Nothing’s Perfect (or everything is)
Journal Entry: Saturday, August 27, 2022
Nothing’s Perfect (or everything is)
“You can’t be perfect, but you can be perfectly yourself.” Cecil Touchon
Do you think of yourself as a perfectionist? Is that holding you hostage? Let’s talk about that.
From Merriam-Webster dictionary:
PERFECT: being entirely without fault or defect: flawless. a perfect diamond.: satisfying all requirements: accurate: corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept.
After I was out of school and trying to figure out how I was going to ‘make it’ as an artist I kept bumping up against the problem of my own self-criticism. It was debilitating. I was never sure if I was satisfied with my own hand, I always saw flaws in everything I made. Nothing was ever perfect enough, not good enough, not smart enough, whatever.
It was really some kind of fear, always trying to make something that I felt was perfect, something I could feel proud of. Let’s face it, the work probably wasn’t that good and the ideas still half baked. How could it be otherwise at the beginning? I wasn’t in any galleries yet, I had only been in a couple of group exhibitions so I didn’t have much feedback from others because I was just building my body of work privately in my studio, researching, experimenting, trying to figure what my creative voice was, what my direction should be. What constitutes a direction? How is the work going to stack up compared to what other artists are doing? How does the work look compared to the masters? No, not good enough, too much like this or that artist. What’s my style? What is my contribution to the Story? This was in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. At that time the whole art world seemed in disarray. Artists were going in all kinds of directions, there didn’t seem to be any clear consensus of where things were going. What is a young artist supposed to do? Will anybody even like what I come up with?
All of these things are wrapped up in the misguided expectations of someone trying to get a foothold on their creative path. By someone, of course, I mean myself. For some reason I was compelled to be an artist. Why? I can’t really say. It was something I decided somewhere in my childhood I think. Was there an identifiable decisive moment? I can’t really identify anything specific.
So basic but important questions asked 👍
To people who may read this, I’m a self taught visual artist so take what I say knowing that fact.
Perfection is a practice not the goal, we aim at the target , hoping for a perfect score. Through practice our work shows refinement not perfection.
If an artist can’t be self critical and be confident in realizing their week points
they are far from being a creative person.
We should not fear criticism, we should be in the practice of knowing why we created what we created the way we created it, an artist should welcome questions and criticism. It’s your chance to expand on your concept’s.
The direction of a artists work comes from the artist. We take in the world or experiences or whatever you are open to and that goes through a filter each creative human has and is presented to the viewer in one of thousand mediums we wish to offer our work in.
The “clear direction of art in the word” is only followed by artists who need outside guidance. I wish to work through my own ideas ( concepts) . Why waste a artist voice serving the director of art. If you are an artist say what YOU want to say.
Don’t worry how your work “ stacks up “ to other artists work. Be original as much as you can!
Asking why one wants to be an artist?
To be creative, to share concepts with others who are not moved enough by popular culture.