If there’s one thing that everyone in my life knows about me, it’s that I love making art.
Countless days of my younger years were spent drawing the people I knew and designing make-believe houses using grid paper and pencil crayons. Now, just before my 20th birthday, I’ve graduated to embroidery, poetry, charcuterie boards, and loose sketches of places that I would die to visit someday (i.e, lots of light houses from Maine).
Before I continue, I must give a disclaimer: my art is not good. I am not winning any awards or provoking any meaningful thoughts with my doodles.
…and I am 100%, undoubtedly okay with that!
There comes a certain joy and freedom in making art that is bad. Of course, the argument can be made that there’s no such thing as bad art, because art and beauty are subjective in nature.
Well, to me, my art is subjectively bad, because I refuse to aim for perfection. For a very long time, I struggled with the thought that my pieces weren’t good enough because my technique was off, or because it didn’t look as pretty as my fellow artistic friends’ pieces.
My frustration would manifest itself as scribbles of deprecating words on the margins of my sketchpads – “ew what is that”, “why”, and “oh god kill it”. Everyday, when I would open my book to doodle, I’d be reminded of how little I thought of my skills.
Then, it hit me; the ultimate mantra of any creative:
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
Everything fell into place. The reason I was so unhappy with my skillset as an artist was because I was grading my work with an impossible rubric. I had lost the whole reason that I loved art in the first place, which was to create. Somewhere along the way, I had stopping creating and started mimicking the art that I thought was pretty.
So, I deleted my “pretty art” Pinterest board and re-directed my negative emotions. Any time I began to feel like my drawings weren’t looking right, or that my poetry wasn’t making sense, I would channel those thoughts and use them as motivation to try again. Sometimes, I even leave sketches half-finished on purpose – not because of some deeper meaning, but because I think drawing people without facial features is interesting.
Speaking of deeper meanings, it is so easy to make up a meaning for an art piece on the spot. If someone tells you that the painting of a tree you did looks like a mouldy piece of broccoli, tell them it’s a metaphor for beauty standards or inner v.s. outer growth!
And so, gentle reader, I re-iterate: bad art is a good thing. An excellent thing, even. It dares you to consider what you value in your craft, and what drives you to be an artist. It can help you re-define your sense of personal expression, and develops your confidence and self-assurance.
Here is my challenge for you: make a bad piece of art today!