The Inner Critic
The inner critic is the biggest enemy to artistic success.
Monday, January 12, 2009
I did it! And I’m so proud! I went on a vacation for a week and a half and actually relaxed!
Yes I did take the laptop - no way I can get that liberated yet - but I did no work. The lady I work for (me) is a real pain, who berates and criticizes me about not getting everything done.
But I blew her off and had fun. My family is in California and the priority when there, should be to be with them.
Came home refreshed and with energy to get the New Year going in some new directions.
For one, I want to broaden the scope of this blog and include some thought-provoking stuff whenever it comes up.
“At the Beach”
OK, so this is not your typical photograph. This is a Guerrilla photo capturing a Winter window painting, reflected on a screen and superimposed on the Capitola, CA beach scene outside. No PhotoShop was involved. This stuff actually exists out there if you have your eyes open enough to see it. The date was January 1, the restaurant was Zelda’s on the beach, and the fish & chips were very good.
Battling the Inner Critic
The new session of Art School 101 for the Journal and Sketchbook has just begun, and one student posted this perpetual and eternally thought-provoking question: What can I do to get rid of the crippling Inner Critic who is bound and determined to keep me from drawing success?
I gave it some thought and posted my response, and because I think it is of general interest,
I would like to share it here:
It has taken me years to learn how to garden here in New Mexico after moving from California.
I have made so many mistakes, and many of them have actually resulted in the demise of living things!
I would be sad when I blew it and something died, but would realize that it was all a question of learning the basics and filling in with the details. Just dust myself off and keep going.
I did not blame and criticize myself over the results of my ignorance. I was trying, learning, and I was getting there slowly but surely. (I now have a "paradise" garden that nobody can even believe can thrive here).
All humans suffer from some level of INSECURITY (the *real* name of the inner critic). We always question whether we are measuring up to one standard or another.
Thankfully, in most areas, like gardening, we can prove ourselves eventually, and all is well.
But drawing, singing, speechmaking and the like are *self* EXPRESSION. They are *personal* and when we express our personal selves, we feel more vulnerable than at any other time.
It is a very scary thing to say out loud who we are and how we feel. Many folks have anxiety attacks just having to say their name out loud when they do those "let's go around the table and introduce ourselves" things at meetings. And many others can't get their feelings to go through their throats and become words without great struggle - especially "I love you".
We are sticking ourselves “out there" with that kind of thing and we are terrified of the possibility of non-acceptance or, God forbid, disapproval.
But the truth is we are taking ourselves way too seriously, we are our own worst enemy, and we should just stop and do a reality check.
If we did the worst drawing or sang the most off key song, there are very few individuals in the world who would be rude enough to comment about it. It is only our own voice we hear making judgments.
Even in the case of genuine, constructive criticism, it is not the content of the criticism that hurts your feelings, it is the inner critic's *interpretation* of the comments that does.
I do "Instructor Comments" in the advanced Art School Workshop and in the Photography Workshops, where nobody would learn anything if I just sat around making nice comments.
But if I were to say that a photo was underexposed, or the background is too busy, or that the road in a drawing does not disappear at a vanishing point as it should, there is not a personal thing about that. The proper response would be "I didn't know that, and now I do know that, and I will fix it next time".
But that's not how we normally respond. When our inner critic gets through interpreting for us, we hear that comment as "YOU DID SOMETHING WRONG!!" and we use that to feed our own insecurity that we are not GOOD enough.
So one great approach to disarming all of this is to de-personalize it. Take the comment at face value.
What does it mean that this photo is underexposed? It means you need more light, so you increase the aperture or decrease the shutter speed to get more light. Not that you're an unworthy photographer. I always tell my students to blame the camera - the camera probably won't cry.
What does it mean when you have no vanishing point in a drawing? It means that two lines need to be closer together when they meet the horizon in order to look realistic. Not that you can't draw and will never be an artist.
With rare exception, we are not born geniuses who know all there is to know. If we were, we wouldn't have much to do, because all of life is about learning one thing or another. To learn, we have to realize that we don't already know - and we may do it wrong until we do know.
That's only natural and is not something to be ashamed of, or food for our insecurities. It's just process.
So, the next time YOU start ranting at YOURself about how displeased YOU are about that thing YOU just drew not being good enough, just remember that nobody but YOU is thinking that and YOU ought to just cut it out! Nobody else is actually involved at all.
“Hanging out with me . . .”
I spent New Year’s Day at the beach in Capitola, California. Even in Santa Fe, we have WInter, so to be sitting on the boardwalk on January 1 was a treat anyway.
But, so was this vision of my Mom and two of my nieces, Gloria and Emily, sketching in their journals (I admit to being the catalyst for all this Art Journaling).
I loved seeing their confidence drawing in public - even though people were looking on (I bet the lady with the dog ran home and got herself a journal!). This situation could have been a real beach party for their inner critics, but we did not bring them along!
