Studio Research Project: Little Reminders
"Self-compassion fosters resilience, enabling us to persevere through creative blocks, self-doubt, and negative criticism. By practicing self-compassion, we can cultivate a growth mindset, embracing challenges as opportunities for learning and growth.
In a world that often glorifies competition and success, self-compassion offers us a path to sustainable creativity. It allows us to embrace our imperfections, learn from our failures, and celebrate their achievements without succumbing to self-judgment. I would suspect that most of us could use an introspective view of how to improve self-compassion."
-(Timo Nell)
BFA Project: The Tower
My BFA is a concept project about my internal struggles with burnout and the journey of acceptance: the idea I had of being an artist was never realistic. Having been labeled an artist my whole life, with it being my answer and title, I let it define me and shape how I viewed myself and my value. Having been in denial about my relationship with art, ignoring how unhealthy it was, self-sabotaging, and even burdensome it had become.
My tarot cards were glad to call out the issue, as the title was inspired by a reading I had done over the summer, calling out the instability within my relationship and how it was bound to crumble due to the unrealistic expectations I had put on myself; I just hadn't expected it to be before my senior year.
This was a death, this project being my way of processing this change and internal conflict, and now it's time to start over, reshaping what art means to me and growing a healthier relationship with my first love.
Adjacent Project: Little Reminders
The project I will be taking on is called “Little Reminders”, sharing small words of compassion with other artists. These works shown are inked drawings of my drinks and food, imperfect but real parts of my day, with a small reminder of compassion to myself and now for others. I started this as a way to just draw, even if it felt heavy, even if I hated the imperfect drawing, it existed, and that was enough. I had learned that this experience of pressure and unrealistic expectations for artists was not something I had invented but a common occurrence. I want to be the reminder that art does not need to be perfect; it just needs to exist, and your progress will come with time, but you need to give yourself the grace to see it.
Questions:
Why is it easy to get locked into an idea of a title?
How come artists are so critical of themselves when the world already does it?
Is the key to getting out of artblock and burnout self-compassion?
When it comes to stress relief, a lot of non-art related fields say to draw- what do you do when that's the foundation of your stress?
How many amazing works of art have we not been able to see due to the idea of perfection and the critical nature of what makes art “art”?
Links:
- https://mywellbeing.com/mental-health-dictionary/artist-related-stress
- https://timoneillstudios.com/fuzzy-feelings-cultivating-compassion-and-creativity/
- https://www.antonioalanisart.com/blog/self-care-tips-for-artists
- https://www.reddit.com/r/DecidingToBeBetter/comments/1fyzcxo/how_do_you_become_less_critical_of_your_art_and/
- https://sketchdesignrepeat.com/creative-burnout-improving-artist-mental-health/
- https://juliabausenhardt.com/how-i-deal-with-burnout-as-an-artist/
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