Managing Expectations
I hope this finds you digging into your art practice and loving every minute of it, but in case you're experiencing something a little less satisfying, I hope you realize that's normal.
Just like life, our art practice has ebbs and flows, ups and downs, times of feeling awkward and lost, and times where we feel we've hit our stride and are deliciously absorbed in our process.
When I learned to expect this wide range of experience (instead of whatever my brain was telling me I ‘should’ feel like right now) then I found that I could relax a bit more into the moment and appreciate what was happening, knowing that it's all part of the process. All of it are parts of MY process, and what a wonderful thing that is--to be in process is to be living.
I wanted to share this amazing quote I saw on Instagram today:
“The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars. ”
When you hear people with a long history of practicing art say things like this, it pays to stop and take it in…
maybe you're right on track.
Just think about that--the ‘overwhelming majority’ of what you're making is in service of a ‘small fraction’ of brilliant output.
Another way to say this might be,
“The majority of your art practice is simply practice for those smaller bits where it all culminates into something spectacular.”
When I listen to other artists (as well as the one in my head), I realize that we all have a tendency to expect the opposite: we expect the overwhelming majority of our work to be what soars, when it's always been the other way around.
If we knew that this was absolutely true, and also that it's how an art practice should be, would we enjoy the process more? Would we appreciate the journey in a relaxed and satisfying way? Would our focus possibly shift a bit more toward what WE are becoming instead of what we're producing?
I can only speak for myself, but when I manage to expect what actually is, only then do I get the thrill of being on this artistic journey. Creating and painting are my joyous tools; discovering who I am through them is my work, and what I'm really after.
