Sunwithteeth

I am critical of myself, and everything I do. On occasion, I wonder where it comes from, but now I worry most about the effects which may be best described as paralysis.

This has become increasingly apparent with age, a cycle of creation and frustration. I write a sentence or play some chords, work on anything with a degree of artistic expression, and I am likely to experience almost immediate disappointment. I review the work in my head, over and over again, and become convinced that it need not exist and should be deleted, erased, purged, as soon as possible. So many works have met their end in this way, barely formed, a sketch never completed.

But, I know it doesn’t work that way..

“..everything is gestation and then bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist’s life: in understanding as in creating. There is no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confidence in the storms of spring without fear that after them may come no summer. ” Rilke

I know this, I’ve read these lines hundreds of times, but somehow I still forget. When rather, I should disabuse myself of this idea of completion, of making something for an end other than satisfaction and growth. The need to create should be paramount, and improvement only comes with sowing the seeds of a body of work, the development of a process and facility, a maturation that eventually might lead to mastery. But I need to stop thinking about perfection, and mastery as goals, these things only come with time, and a love for creating.

Making art is a messy business, a truly difficult task, to scratch out an idea, and ignore the flaws when the sole objective is to create a thing of beauty and meaning. But again, I must consider the creators and artists I admire. I know they dedicated every ounce of their energy and focus into their work. That’s what makes is powerful and lasting, it’s imbued with their passion and personality, completely. They constructed a vocabulary in their mediums, and created their own worlds.

If I think I have something to contribute, that I have art in me. I need to stop and give in. Give up on perfection, or making anything for anybody else. I have to dedicate the energy and time, and learn to love the sketches and failures and ugliness, and just create. As Bruce Mau suggests: “Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).” Only then, will I find my way through.