I'd like to think that I can create in a full circle (concept to fruition)....it's the way I think. Unfortunately, it is not always the way I work. I am linear in thinking - and we've covered that before in this blog. Sometimes it can serve me very well. Ah, when? You ask. And, you'd have a good right to ask that. Since I consider myself an artist it would be nice to see more finished work. Isn't that what artists do?
Linear works well when I am consumed with making components that are meant to be sold or be a part of a much larger art piece. That is when my linear thinking can truly sing as a way of working. I can go quite fast. I can make creative variations on a theme and extrapolate those bits of flotsam out in non-ending computations of the original thought. It's fun - it's Zen. It has a beginning and no end, so there isn’t any atychiphobia involved. Maybe over the past five years I have actually been a little atychiphobic.
Atychiphobia is the abnormal, unwarranted, and persistent fear of failure. I think most artists have that fear and work very hard not to label it. I am more of a name it and hopefully tame it person. Crap, what if you make all of this "stuff", you put it out in the world and there it sits - unnoticed and not purchased (if that is your intention)? Shit, maybe that means you have no talent - people don't like your art, but it comes from your soul and takes hard work. Mind blowing. Do they have to? Do they really have to like your art? Sometimes that answer is yes.
I'll be the first to say there are times this stops me from taking risks. I'll also add that I KNOW it's dumb and an unreasonable fear....but that (at times) does not lower the panic I feel when working less linear. I find when I do that I work slower/ am much more critical/ I procrastinate/ and I way over think the outcome and details of a piece. It's not rocket science and doesn't need to be picked apart as if by a committee of hired judges, but I do it anyway.
Have I done that before? - Absolutely - There have been long periods where working in any fashion other than to the total completion of a piece would have been considered a waste of time. Cyclical thinking is the king at those times - where something has a beginning and an end.
My revelation for the New Year is that I need to consider both ways of thinking as having positive outcomes and that they can co-exist in my work habits. I can finish pieces and start fresh – and I can continue with linear work to include in those pieces without any rush to judgment about temporary bouts of atychiphobia. Will I still want to control everything and predict the outcome - probably -? But it is a New Year and it's time to jump back into the deep end of the pool.
LOL – I wonder if the water is cold or hot?
2 comments:
Good grief, woman. That's a deep post...before I've even finished my morning coffee. ;)
"Overcoming the fear of failure is entirely dependent on a person’s willingness and motivation to change."
Easier said than done, eh?
I wonder if it's water? More likely wine or champaign?
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