me looking like i’m about to pick some freshly grown veggies from my garden as soon as i finish this shoot
How are you doing? Are you tired of people asking how you’re doing?
I kind of am. There’s really not much to say, you know? I’m at home, I miss my family, everything seems like it’s on fire, I watched my cat chase a piece of fuzz around the living room for 15 minutes today and it was the most entertaining part of my week.
If you don’t know, I just graduated from SCAD in May. Since then I picked up a part-time job and have been taking some time to really think about my work and the career I want. I’ve been reflecting on my 4 years at SCAD, what I learned, and what I didn’t. In case you missed it, a couple of months ago I posted a video about thoughts on my time at the school and whether or not I felt like my time was worth it. TLDW: I do think it was worth it. But I don’t think anything could ever prepare me for the “real world”.
I’ve just been thinking a lot about my career and how it feels post-graduation. The truth is, I’m not where I wish I was. I’m not near where I imagined myself being once I graduated. And it’s because I didn’t really take ownership or control over who I was and my goals until…well, now. Maybe I’ll talk more about that process in the future, but for now I just want to acknowledge the mistakes I’ve made, or things I’ve done wrong.
I just posted a video reflecting on the mistakes I’ve made so far as a young artist, in case you’re more interested in watching the video.
But I know some people enjoy blogposts more, so keep reading if you’re interested.
Mistake Number One:
Not Getting Started
Sooner
I think that it’s important to have work that you’re proud of and confident in before you start trying to put it out there in the world. But it can be hard sometimes to differentiate between: “Oh…I don’t know if I’m ready yet…” and “No. I’m not ready. I know what I want to do and I have an idea of how I can get there.”
Over the last year, I can just personally tell that I was playing things safe. I look back on the work that I was making a year ago and I just wonder why I never did anything with it. I was reorganizing files on my computer recently and scrolled through some of my older work and I was struck by how much I enjoyed looking at it. I looked at those pieces and I almost felt like I was looking at the work of another artist, I had become so disconnected from it.
I remember at the time, I was also proud of the work, but I was too scared to stake a claim on it, you know? I was too scared to submit that work into shows, or put it on my website, or even just start pushing my work on social media. Since I’ve been looking at that work more, I’ve started transitioning my current practice to reflect the older work more, because what I was working on recently was incredibly unsatisfying to me. And I just think if I had started promoting myself and my work then, where would I be in my career now?
But there’s no need to think of that time as wasted, I now know that what I was just working on isn’t for me. And that’s an accomplishment.
Mistake Number Two:
Always Taking
Everyone’s Advice
Probably my biggest mindset issue is being too susceptible to others and their opinions of my work. It’s one of the main reasons why I was so ready to graduate, and one of the main reasons why I’m putting off grad school for a while.
I’m not good at avoiding seeking validation for my work. Whenever professors would compliment my work, I’d be sure I was on the “right path”. Whenever professors would suggest a different direction I’d think “okay that’s the actual path I should be on” even if I knew that wasn’t the direction I really wanted to go in.
Or when classmates I thought were further along than I was, or classmates I respected would say something like “I’m not sure this is the work you should be making right now” or “I don’t think this work would be successful in the world right now” I would instantly discount what I was working on. Later, as I was getting closer to graduating, I got a lot better at saying thank you for that critique but I’m not actually going to listen to that.
Critique is super valuable, but so is understanding that you have the ability to take ownership of your work, even when people don’t agree with it. You won’t ever be able to please everyone, your art should only please yourself.
If you’re not making work that you’re passionate about one) you’re going to get tired of working really fast because there won’t be any true drive two) people will see your lack of confidence and interest. Nobody is going to invest in your work, much less be interested in it, if you don’t even seem to enjoy it.
Mistake Number Three:
Thinking Too Much
If you’ve seen my most recent sketchbook, you know that the first 1/3 of it was mostly note-taking. I’m a big believer in constantly questioning your practice and learning new things about your work. But there is such thing as thinking about things too much.
It would get to the point where I would pose a question in my sketchbook, struggle to find the answer, and instead of continuing to work and make my way through the problem, I would just become stuck in place. I would shut the sketchbook, put my work to the side, and become plagued by that question for several weeks or months, unable to work before I solved it. That’s not a necessarily healthy or productive mindset.
I still ask myself questions, I still give my work room to breathe, because I think it’s important to my personal practice, but I’m working on being more active and trusting the process.