'cept Mr.Zom-zom - That was this morning. VERY early this morning...
Enough art-face-rubbery.
To continue from my previous post, what I wanted to talk about today is that cold specter that looms over every artist's shoulder - the inner-critic. The voice of "reason" that kills the imaginative. The voice that says "dial it down", "This is horrible", "Why bother, it'll never work"... And the list goes on ad infinitum.
I sit here, and I listen to that same critic on my back even now, telling me that I should be embarrassed of what I posted above. That I should probably take them down, they're not even finished...
That my writing is silly and simple, and who the hell would be interested in it anyway? See, look! No one even commented on your carefully crafted posts...
And so on and on... You get it by now.
So how do you get over it? How do you beat that horrible critic and shut him up for good?
My conclusion:
You can't.
EVER.
And you don't want to, either. You must accept him.
Why? Because if you shut him up, you shut yourself up - he is you. Or a facet of you. And he isn't necessarily always the bad guy. Sometimes, in some ways, he can even be an ally.
This voice is part of what forms what I call "the Rollercoaster". Some of you just might be nodding right now, going, "yes, yes. That's about right."
Or maybe not. Could be I'm just.... breaking new ground. Or something.
The Rollercoaster is the "ups and downs" type of affair many artists have with their art. When breaking new ground, inspired, or just executing well, we're joyous. We're ecstatic! We've made it. Finally busted the well of our creativity wide open! I'll never struggle again.... Until the next day, when everything we try to execute seems like it came out of the nether-region of a hippopotamus.
Anyway, this inner critic is what forms the two, in my opinion, most fundamentally important conditions to an artist:
First, and foremost: The inability to be satisfied with our work.
Second: The necessity to improve our work.
That voice of dissent, that ever nagging itch, is also the very thing driving you to be better. To give it your all each, and every time. To strive and work to overcome the errors of the previous try.
This is what a lot of people would call "becoming friends with failure."
Yet there is a difference between listening to the critic, and giving in. The critic will tell you where you need to go to appease him, if you listen. But he will be a cruel taskmaster that crushes everything you attempt, if you give in.
You may look at your drawings and say "I do feet so horribly. I suck at feet... God I hope no one notices..."
But there is another way to look at this:
"I am weak with feet.... I need to go practice drawing feet for awhile."
Let the critic guide your steps on your quest to get better. Listen to him, but never give in.
That's the wall I refer to - when you give in to the critic. Now, the fact is, sometimes, the critic is right. Something you're working on just isn't working, it's ok. It's ok to crumple the paper, turn the page, make a new document. It's ok.
Sometimes. In truth, most times, for me.
But sometimes, something you're working on is working, but it means something, and so it's scary. It makes you afraid of it. It makes your critic revile it even more. And so we become paralyzed by our fear, and hit the Wall hard. And give up.
We must be careful to understand that while we sometimes should kill our babies, there's almost always a way to keep one alive if we want to - if it's worth beating off the hungry baby-eating inner monologue long enough to bring to fruition. For me, right now, the biggest thing is making sure to remind myself that I can always try again. A second draft. Oh, let me try that pose again. There will always be another page, another new document.
Just. Don't. Quit.
And don't be afraid to honestly congratulate yourself when you see something you are satisfied with - even if it might just be a hand in an image of eight people. One day, you will be looking at a whole piece or project or what-have-you, and instead of saying "Oh, I did that one thing there great" you'll realize your inner critic is saying "Oh that's all really great, everything except that one thing, right there. "
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