Honesty
We’ve been working on the premise that a healthy art practice involves these 4 things:
It's intentional.
It's self focused.
It requires devotion.
It calls for honesty.
Last article, I talked about devotion. Honestly, the thought of showing devotion to my creativity brings tears to my eyes, mostly because there were so many years that I didn't, simply because I didn't know how.
So, in case you're like me, I'll ask again the questions I posed last time so you can begin to answer these life-changing queries:
• What could your art practice look like with true devotion to your own development?
• What would it feel like to release the demands for producing something that ‘made it all worth it’?
• What if the devotion itself was what made it worth it?
If you find these tricky to answer or hard to imagine, then I would call you ‘normal’. Redesigning the way you relate to an integral part of yourself is no small task. And the quality that it requires, more than any other, is honesty.
To address our relationship with our creative self, we have to be able to be honest about how we relate presently, and all of the ways in which it is, perhaps, unproductive or without love. Yes, I said love because to make all of the changes I've been writing about, it takes incredible amounts of love for yourself, for your potential, and for your authenticity. Honestly reflecting on your relationship with your creativity can be the difference between the status quo and a literal unlocking of your true potential.
To be utterly transparent, here's a few questions with which I have had to make the decision to be honest with myself:
Do I really want this? Or am I, instead, wanting easy success that comes in a way that my comfort zone will not be disturbed?
Do I really want the adventure of becoming fully creative? (Adventures have both thrilling and challenging parts.) Or am I content with just a surface relationship with painting and creating?
Am I willing to take full responsibility for how I develop as a person? In other words, am I willing to admit that the only person, the only force, holding me in place is myself?
Really answering these questions literally changed the way I operate in the world. I now prioritize my time learning and developing creatively in a way that I used to only prioritize the needs of other people. I fully understand that I may never be ‘successful’ as an artist in the way I've dreamed about, but at the end of my life, it will be the devotion to my craft, to the adventure of becoming fully myself that matters most to me, and I've begun to prioritize accordingly.
Answering questions about how we've treated our creative selves in the past can be very hard, but if there is a lock on the door to creativity, then honesty certainly must be the key that opens it. Does this resonate with you? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.
Now that I’ve talked about what I see to be the 4 foundational pillars of a healthy art practice, I want to address the cages. The cage is the common ways that we imprison ourselves (usually only in our minds) and limit the boundaries of our art practice. In many cases, we feel they are unique to us, but are actually quite universal, so let’s talk about them.
