Are You a Team Player?

Last week in the Creative Breakthroughs Collage Tele-class, we talked about the importance of listening to your artwork as you create, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

Because listening to your artwork creates a conversation and makes room for more information than your left brain might be allowing.

(Especially if it starts panicking about how things are going and begins barraging your right brain with expletives and judgmental disapproval.)

But having a conversation with your artwork releases the pressure of having to somehow come up with it all on your own because you’re in this together.

You’re a team–you and your artwork.

Listening to what your piece is doing and asking it what it needs to become  itself….more…is respectful and honors creative process because it acknowledges that it doesn’t all come from you.

It’s also a great way to help yourself get comfortable with honoring the “journey” aspect of creating.

Because in our goal-oriented society, it’s easy to say “it’s the journey, not the destination” but hard to genuinely feel that.

Which is why each piece can sometimes feel like evidence in a trial that determines whether or not you deserve the title “artist”.

Ugh.

No wonder it can feel downright scary to risk making bad work.

But when you engage with your work as partners, you realize that each piece is trying to help you in your path to express what you want to express–you just have to listen.

Taking One for the Team

That also means that different pieces have different roles–not all of them are meant to be framed or displayed or given away.

Some of them are humble messengers sent to help you on your journey–to help your future work come into being–in a fuller, more developed way than you can imagine right now.

You  just have to be willing to listen (and notice) to these “bad” pieces that “didn’t work.”

For instance, what don’t you like about it? What doesn’t work? Did it work for a while before it didn’t? What happened then?

Is there a pattern in your creating that leads you to this point? What could you do differently next time? Or how can you transform this piece into something else?

Do you see where you’re stopping yourself–maybe where you get afraid or confused?

This listening process then requires responding–which might mean you continue to work on something or it might involve making changes on the next thing you start.

It’s also okay if your response is a question–you don’t have to have all the answers and you don’t have to win–you’re in a conversation not an argument.

The more you have these conversations, the better they get and the more information you can glean.

And these “bad” pieces that “don’t work” become special to you in a whole new way. They are their own gift.

Having these conversations also puts individual pieces into perspective–where you realize that everything you make is part of something larger.

And that this larger something is your creative life–a long haul of many pieces, many experiences, many creative peaks, dips, and plateaus.

Looking at it this way, it’s an exciting prospect. Who knows where you’ll go and what you’ll make?

And all you need to do be a good team member and listen. And then respond. And then listen some more.

Because–you and your artwork–you’re in this together. You’re a team.

It’s so nice to not have to go it alone.

Your Turn

What do you think? Are you listening to your work in the way you’d like? Do you need to change the way you approach your relationship? Is it strange to think of it as a relationship? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you.