Art & Fear, Observations on the perils (and rewards) of Artmaking

Art and Fear

Artists don't get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working" - Stephan DeStaebler

Vision and Execution

Vision is always ahead of execution - and it should be. Vision, Uncertainty, and Knowledge of Materials are inevitabilities that all artists must acknowledge and learn from: vision is always ahead of execution, knowledge of materials is your contact with reality, and uncertainty is a virtue.

Imagination

Imagination is in control when you begin making an object. The artwork's potential is never higher that in that magic moment. But as the piece grows, technique and craft take over, and imagination becomes a less useful tool. A piece grows by becoming specific. The development of an imagined piece into an actual piece is a progression of decreasing possibilities. Your imagination is free to race a hundred works ahead, conceiving pieces you could and perhaps should and may one day will execute - but not today, not in the piece at hand. All you can work on today is directly in front of you. Your job is to develop an imagination of the possible. Charles Eames: 1% goes into conceiving a piece and 99% into holding onto it the project runs its course. A finished piece is, in effect, a test of correspondence between imagination and execution.

Materials

What counts in making art is the actual fit between the contents of your head and the qualities of your materials. The knowledge you need to make that fit comes from noticing what really happens as you work - the way the materials respond, and the way that response (and resistance) suggest new ideas to you. It's those real and ordinary changes that matter. Art is about carrying things out, and materials are what can be carried out. Because they are real, they are reliable.

Uncertainty

All that you do will inevitably be flavored with uncertainty - uncertainty about what you have to say, about whether the materials are right, about whether the piece shlould be long or short, indeed about whether you'll ever be satisfied with anything you make. It is the normal state of affairs. In making art you need to give yourself room to respond authentically, both to your subject matter and to your materials. Art happens between you and something - a subject, an idea, a technique - and both you and that something need to be free to move. Control is not the answer.

What's really needed is nothing more than a broad sense of what you are looking for, some strategy for how to find it, and an overriding willingness to embrace mistakes and surprises along the way. Making art doesn't mix well with predictability. Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding.

Fears about Yourself

When you act out of fear - your fears will come true.

Fears about artmaking fall into two families: fears about yourself, and fears about your reception by others. In a general way, fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work, while fears about your reception by others prevent you from doing your own work. Both families surface in many forms, some of which you may find all too familiar.

Pretending

The fear that you're only pretending to do art is the consequence of doubting your own artistic credentials. It causes you to undervalue your work. In moments of weakness, hte myth of the extraordinary provides the excuse for an artist to quit trying to make art. If becoming self-conscious about artmaking, try to work spontaneously. While you may feel your're just pretending that your're an artist, there is no way to pretend your're making art. You make good work by making lots of work that isn't very good, and gradually weeding out the parts that aren't good, the parts that aren't yours. Feedback. Most direct route to learning about your own vision.

Talent

Talent is "what comes easily". Talent my get someone off the starting blocks faster, but without a sense of direction or a goal to strive for, it won't won't for much. Artists get better by sharpening their skills or by acquiring new ones; they get better by learning to work and by learning from their work. They commit themselves to the work of their heart and act upon that commitment.

Perfection

Perfect is the enemy of good. To require perfection is to invite paralysis. You find reasons to procrastinate, since to not work is to not make mistakes. The seed for your next art work lies embedded in the imperfections of your current piece. Such imperfections (or mistakes if you're feeling particularly depressed about them today) are your guides - valuable, reliable, objective, non-judgmental guides - to matters you need to reconsider or develop further. It's precisely this interaction beween the ideal and the real taht locks your art into the real world, and gives meaning to both.

Annihilation

Annihilation is an existential fear: the common - but sharply overdrawn - fear that some part of you dies when you stop making art. And it's true. Non-artists may not understand that, but artists themselves (especially those who are stuck) understand it all too well. The depth of your need to make things establishes the level of risk in not making them.

Magic

"There is a myth among amateurs, optimists and fools that beyond a certain level of achievement, famous artists retire to some kind of Elysium where criticism no longer wound and work materializes without your effort." - Mark Matousek

The belief that "real" art possesses some indefinable magic ingredient puts pressure on you to prove your work contains the same. Very wrong! Asking your work to prove anything only invites doom. What artists share is the fatalistic suspicion that when their own art turns out well, it's a fluke - but when it turns out poorly, it's an omen. Admittedly, artmaking probably does require something special, but just what that something might be has remained remarkably elusive - elusive enough to suggest that it may be something particular to each artist, rather than universal to them all. But the important point here is not that you have - or don't have - what other artists have, but rather that it doesn't matter. Whatever they have is something needed to do their work - it wouldn't help you in your work even if you had it. Their magic is theirs. You don't lack it. You don't need it. It has nothing to do with you. Period.

Expectations

Expectations provide a means to merge imagination with calculation. But it's a delicate balance. Expectations drift into fantasy all too easily. Expectations based on illusion lead almost always to disillusionment. Conversely, expectations based on the work itself are the most useful too the artist possesses. What you need to know about the next piece is contained in the last piece. The place to learn about your materials is in the last use of your materials. The place to learn about your execution is in your execution. The best information about what you love is in your last contact with what you love. Your work is your guide: a complete, comprehensive, limitless reference book on your work. There is no other such book and it's yours alone. Your fingerprints are all over the work, and you alone know how they got there. Your work tells you about your working methods, your discipline, your strengths and weaknesses, your habitual gestures, your willingness to embrace. The lessons you are meant to learn are in your work. To see them, you need only look at the work clearly - without judgement, without need or fear, without wishes or hopes. Without emotional expectations. Ask your work what it needs, not what you need. Then set aside your fears and listen, the way a good parent listens to a child.

Fears about Others

While others' reactions need not cause problems for the artist, they usually do. The problems arise when we confuse others' priorities with our own. It's hard to take criticism not personally.

Understanding

What is sometimes needed is simply an insulating period, a gap of pure time between the making of your art, and the time when you share it with outsiders. Working at your own pace for years, away from the spotlight of criticism and suggestions.It might allow the finished work time to find its rightful place in the artists heart and mind - a chance to be understood better by the maker. Then when the time comes for others to judge the work, their reaction is less threatening.

Acceptance

If the need for acceptance is the need to have your work accepted as art then the accompanying fear is finding it dismissed as craft, hobby decoration. Acceptance and approval are powers held by others, whether thy be friends, classmates, curators or author of the definitive history of your chosen medium. At some point the need for acceptance may well collide head on with the need to do our own work. The real question about acceptance is not whether your work will be viewed as art, but whether it will be viewed as your art.

Approval

Acceptance: having your work counted as the real thing / Approval: having people like it. -> both are audience related issues. For artists who thrive on confrontation, rejection is not a problem, but for many others the constant wear and tear takes a toll. For those artists, survival means finding an environment where art is valued and artmaking encouraged. But still: Counting on approval, even that of peers, puts a dangerous amount of power in the hands of the audience. Worse yet, the audience is seldom in a a position to grant (or withhold) approval on the one issue that really counts / namely, whether or not you're making progress in your work. They're in a good position to comment on how they're moved (or challenged or entertained) by the finished product but have little knowledge or interest in your process. Audience comes later. The only pure communication is between you and your work!

Finding your work

In the outside world there may be no reaction to what we do; in our artwork is nothing but reaction. A truthful reaction. Look at your work and it tells you how it is when you hold back or when you embrace. When you are lazy, your art is lazy; when you hold back, it holds back; when you hesitate, it stands there staring, hands in its pockets. But when you commit, it comes on like blazes. In the ideal artist, fears not only continue to exist, they exist side by side with the desires that complement them, perhaps drive them, certainly feed them. Naive passion, which promotes work done in ignorance of obstacles, becomes - with courage - informed passion, which promotes work done in full acceptance of those obstacles. Foremost among those obstacles is uncertainty. Between the initial idea and the finished piece lies a gulf we can see across, but never fully chart. The truly special moments in artmaking lie in those moments when concept in converted to reality - those moments when the gulf is being crossed. Precise descriptions fail, but it connects to that wonderful condition in which the work seems to make itself and the artist serves only as guide or mediator, allowing all things to be possible. All things considered, in most matters of art it is more nourishing to be a maker than a viewer. But not in all matters. When it comes to the range of art we can usefully engage, some benefits that flow freely to art viewers remain tantalizingly inaccessible to art makers.