Sage Bray Varon

Do you look forward to the day when you will be 100% happy with the work you do and will have an unwavering confidence in your creative talents?

I hate to say this, but I hope you don’t have any such dreams. I’m not trying to be harsh, but not only are these unlikely to happen, but being that way would not be very useful for your life as an artist.

Let me clarify what I’m writing about. I’m not talking about those singular moments when we fall in love with a particular piece we created or are driven by an optimistic and hopeful belief in our talents. We all have those moments or days or weeks, but they don’t last. And that’s okay. In fact, that’s fantastic. And, I hope, by the time you’re done reading this, you will agree with me, if you don’t already.

I don’t remember who posed this question to me or why, but when I was quite a bit younger, someone asked me, “You want to be happy, don’t you?” It was such a widely accepted assumption that we all want to be happy that I had never given it much thought. But for some reason, that day, I did.

I tried to imagine what my life would be like if I was always happy, going through every day without a care. Rather quickly, I realized that I didn’t find it appealing. But it wasn’t that I didn’t want to be happy, at least some of the time. I just didn’t want to be content.

Like most of us, my life has been a series of peaks and valleys, with a good number of extreme highs and terrible lows. However, I would not want my life to be all high peaks. Because, you know what you get without valleys? One big, flat plateau. Reaching a high plateau is pretty cool, but that’s mostly felt in the success of getting there. After that, it can get pretty boring, pretty quick.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to reach for those peaks. I would never discourage someone from chasing their version of happiness. The hope of reaching such a dream is what keeps us going, keeps us pushing to make things better. We need that.

As creatives, we need those ups and downs to create. We need those swings in emotion, the uncertainty of risk, lots and lots of failures, and the occasional disappointment. What would we draw from and what would keep us going if we didn’t have those?

Of course, there is such a thing as too much frustration, so we also need those wins. We need those days where we’re super excited about everything we do, those moments when we become infatuated with the pieces or projects we’re working on, and those times other people become infatuated with our work as well. Those moments are often what we’re really chasing — those big creative highs. They are incredibly motivating.

My advice is to make peace with the fact that you may never be completely satisfied with the work you do, that you’ll question your talent at, and maybe the worth of your art. And that’s okay. In fact, I would worry if you didn’t have those moments.

Without those moments, you really would not be an artist. To be an artist is to hunger. To be an artist is to crave exploration, to feel a driving need to see what’s next, what else you can do, and where your ideas will take you. Artists constantly feel unsettled and unsatisfied because those amazing creative minds keep coming up with things to explore. Not being content is what keeps an artist impassioned.

So, the next time you’re having a rough day, when you feel like you can’t do anything right, or when you just fail miserably, just remember… this is all fuel for the creative fire. And don’t forget that these valleys allow you to really enjoy those peaks.

So, pick yourself up and wash yourself off, then take a break. Go out and look at the wonderful and amazing world around you. Give that creative brain some time to come up with something irresistible to explore. Then get back to it.

If the creative valley you’re in is really dark, go back and look at your successes. Put those awards on your wall, print out those fan emails, and bring up the files of your greatest accomplishments.

Then, pull out your sketches, outlines, notes, and works in progress. Put those where you can see them as well. It’s important to look at what we haven’t done yet as well as what we have completed. Our motivation isn’t fed by our accomplishments. Accomplishments feed our confidence, which definitely needs feeding at times. A weak level of confidence can keep us from trying. However, our motivation to work is fed by hope, by visions of what we might accomplish, by the excitement of what might be. We are motivated by looking forward, not looking back.

So, embrace the roller coaster that is the creative experience, and keep looking forward to your next exciting, possibly scary, always enlightening, creative adventure.

 

Photo by Sage Bray Varon