Heartsong Studio

Of course you’ve been expressing yourself in your art adequately; that’s how you got where you are.   If it seems like you’re starting to repeat yourself too often, and fewer people are drawn to your work any more, you might wonder how to reinvent yourself.

“Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.” (Picasso)

How can you make a shift in your work’s impact and feel that creative rush of adrenalin once again ?

Try scaring yourself.

My sister and I used to take turns lying on a bed with our heads hanging over the edge.  The other one would look at the upside down face until she saw a 180 degree different face in it. Hint — Her hair hanging down could be a beard.

We’d look intently until the strange face suddenly snapped into view.   There was always the thrill of a moment of fear, knowing our own eyes had created it.

What’s this got to do with reinventing yourself ?

Expression isn’t about subject matter or style… even though these are important factors. It’s easy to get into ruts with the thousand details like your subject, style, colour palette, texture, chisel marks, glazes. . .

Expression is about viewpoints.  It’s about personal perspective.   Basically, it’s tied to the eyes through which you see the world around you, and all the filters between your brain and the world of which it’s trying to make sense.

To shift your perspective, try this:

Think about all the sorts of feelings and heartfelt ideas you express in your art.   Now, write down a few brief sentences about what you’ve expressed recently.   Keep it simple.

It’s okay, I’ll wait. . .

Now, imagine you could hang this concept upside down and focus on it from a 180 degree point of view.   See it out of the corner of your eye.

Come at your concepts and ideas from a startlingly different angle, and write down new statements, seeing your art’s purpose as you’ve never seen it before.

See how hard it is ?

Maybe you got off to a fresh start, but how easy it is to slip back into the old rut of thinking about your work.

What does it matter ?

It matters because it’s necessary.  It matters because, in order to stay on top of the wave of a world that’s in constant flux, you have to constantly be reinventing your view of yourself.

Why?   Because if you keep on drawing, painting, or sculpting, the same old tired platitudes, you’ll go on being the same person you were yesterday. You’ll slip gently into the good night of obsolescence.

It’s not about merit.

It’s about Conviction. Courage.   It’s about why you’re on this planet.   To make a dent in the universe.   In other words, if you want to reach people from your heart, you have to dig deep.

You have to extract the essence of what you’re about, and offer it up on a platter to yourself, and anyone and everyone who sees your work.  If you hope for creative satisfaction, even sales or references, be prepared to share your very soul.

And, my friends, none of this can be done without some open-hearted introspection, dogged determination to strike to the core of who you are and what you do, and the genuine desire to connect with your fellow humans.

If you insist on swanning around with superficialities, you’ll marginalize yourself.   There’s too much ambient noise these days to just whimper, and expect to be heard.   If you want to be seen, you’ve gotta dazzle; swing from the chandelier.

Bare-naked art.

Start with the stripped-down, bare-naked, raw-to-the-bone stuff that your art is about.   But it doesn’t have to be ugly.   It can be a glorious sharing of your innermost desires, an arms-wide-open invitation to the world to glimpse the essence of who you are.  And sharing of that magnitude rarely goes unrewarded.

Some may not like what they see.   Some may object, driven by their own fears and doubts, and blame you for their pain.   Others may counsel you to take a safer road, or keep hidden, or “appear professional.”   I say, let them have their way.  You forge yours.   Let them leave.   You stay.  And shine.

Some people - the right people, the people who matter - will love you for it.

Why? Because you’ve given them something to love, something to wrap their eyes around and hug.  Those who stay hidden can’t touch, or be touched, like this.

It takes courage to step outside of your comfort zone.  But that’s okay.  I know you can do it.   I believe in you.