Don't believe you can 'Just' create a work of art? Try this instead...
‘Just Believe in yourself’ is common advice. Believe that you can create, be confident, sell work, be a leader, exhibit your work, Make art.
But ‘believe in yourself’ can sometimes mean nothing, because self belief is much easier said than done – it’s sometimes just too big a leap to make.
‘Just Believe you can create a work of art.’
That’s a pretty huge leap to make if you don’t believe you are worthy or feel without the skills to define your message, demonstrate your creative language or to know what your method of drawing or sculpting is.
So instead, lets rephrase and reduce the leap to…’Just believe you can do the work of art.’
Put the emphasis on the work - the art of sitting down and spending time immersed in the act of creating; the work of process. It’s much easier to believe that is worthwhile. We can all believe it is worth the time to create, sit still, switch off, slow down, provide self care and to learn.
We all have the skills to try. We know we can learn from our mistakes, critique, and improve over time. Step by step, little by little, mark by mark - easy to difficult.
So, if you don’t believe in your art, yet, that’s ok. Instead, start to believe in the work of art.
Over time, you’ll shift to believe in your art, but only after you’ve cared enough to believe in putting the work in.
Need a Kick-start to Make Your Art?
Take the FREE 6-day Challenge to Get unstuck, overcome obstacles and start making the Art you love:
ForM is by far my favourite group exhibition of the year to visit and I am honoured to have been one of artists involved in it this year.
If you missed the exhibition, here’s a round up.