On Thursday morning, I’m in a painting class at our local rec center. One of the painters – Mabel – is in her 90’s and an excellent painter. But she’s never happy with her paintings. “I want more color,” and when she finally lets go of the tried and true experiments boldly, she doesn’t like it. (Spoiler alert: Bold color has made her paintings come even more alive!)
The curse of perfectionism seems to never leave us. We have to consciously divert those thoughts away from our work. My approach to life’s journey is to remember I’m in class. I approach all my creative endeavors with the idea that I’m exploring, learning, and seeing what happens next. I do this not because it’s my method but because it’s a heck of a lot more fun. Do I have something in mind? Of course! But then I have to let that go because wanting to have it come out a particular way stands in the way of the magic that happens when I just try it and see what happens. What is it that we try? Here is an example of what that looks like for me. My brain says: Hmmm, I don’t like how cool that yellow is. It’s the right color if I follow the rules of value and distance, but what if I use a warmer yellow or a cool blue? That thing is not blue in nature, but I’ll just try it and see what happens. Hmmm, I like it, but it needs a little yellow – warm or cool?. And so on. This process could happen forever; at some point, I’m just done. Then I put that painting up in my living room and leave it. The next morning I look at it again. After a good night’s sleep, either 1) I think it’s fine, 2) I see something that needs fixing, and I fix it, or 3) I just don’t think it’s worth saving, and I toss it in the pile of panels to be painted over. No regrets; I’m going to try something different next time.
What I don’t do is think it’s terrible or that I’ve done a lousy job. If those thoughts try to take over, I banish them. It’s taken years of discipline to say no to judgmental thoughts, but it’s worth the practice of ushering them into the ethers. It has freed me to go to places I’m not sure of and discover wonderful things. And sometimes, magic happens!
