Ojalá, Selah, Lateda

Bad Art

Yesterday one of the quotes I ended my post with was “In order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist. Give yourself permission to be a beginner.” That seems to be my quote of the day today. I worked on some of the time travel exercises and thought about all the different careers I might have chosen, but in my morning pages and as I fruitlessly checked my Illustration Friday post for a comment more times than I would care to admit I realized I really really don’t want to be a bad artist.  My father is an accomplished artist and as a child everyone thought I was a natural. Even in kindergarten I would not have called myself a beginner. But as someone who only makes art in fits and starts it is silly to think that I could just pick up a brush or a pencil at will and create a masterpiece every time. It is ridiculous to see myself type it out, but I believed it. I’ve created myself a list of the major things my censor repeats to me that I need to battle. Being willing to be a bad artist may not be my biggest obstacle in becoming “brilliant and prolific” but it surely ranks in the top 3.