No.16 Art is Life and Life is Struggle

In which dreams and fictions steal time from things that shouldn’t require a to-do list

When life/work gets busy, and I don’t have enough time to think in the ways that I need to think, I dream a lot. 

If most of my waking energy is given to things practical, strategic, politic— I tend to become tired and resigned or docile on the outside, but simmering and restive beneath the surface. Ergo: dreams. It’s a good side effect of an otherwise suboptimal state of being.

I’ve been re-reading Magic for Beginners, by Kelly Link. The stories feel like dreaming; like coming home to the home that is the You no one else really knows. Her distortions of realism will feel familiar to anyone who dreams, especially to those who remember their dreams. It’s an atmosphere; something that makes the most odd or unsettling thing come across as perfectly fine. Not exactly normal, maybe, but not a big deal. 

Maybe this is also what Xanax does. 

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The ways that I need to think require slowness. This is not the same thing as focus, though they’re related. Both require a removal of distractions. The Slowness is more like a deliberate un-focus, like staring at nothing; it’s how things that are shy need to be left alone in order to grow— left alone, but not out-of-mind, if you see what I mean. Other things that interfere with it are Overwhelm, Option Paralysis; Pressure; To-Do Lists.

I’ve been reading more than making lately, and I often feel some guilt when I’ve spent a stack of hours reading. The inner critic scolds—You should be painting or doing something useful! (As if reading isn’t a most excellent way to spend one’s time.) I’ve been trying to change the shape of this kind of guilt. I don’t think I can eradicate it; it’s a rhizome, its roots spread far and wide, and deep.

The guilt is partly a result of my job draining me during the week, and my making promises to Art about what a lovely weekend we’ll have together— and when the promise goes unfulfilled, it feels like betrayal. It’s Sunday afternoon and I’ve not touched a drop of ink to paper so far.

There is a battle within. 

Making art has always been my refuge, my home, so why do I find myself putting it off like some unpleasant task? Because when I apply the same pressures and expectations to it that are routinely applied to Work or other necessary tasks, I send Art running to the hills, and kill any desire to chase it. And yet.

I turn it into a thing on a to-do list. I implore it to perform, to dance, smile for the camera to impress the algorithm, but it isn’t made for the algorithm. Nor am I. 

There’s a battle within. 

I want to sell my work; I want my work in exhibits. I want loads of people to see it, so that the ones with whom it resonates will find it, find me. But I don’t want to be an influencer, I don’t want to spend more time ‘marketing’ the work than I do creating it. I want to allow the process of making art to be enjoyable, escapist. A diving in and immersing and forgetting to come up for air. 

This is what making art feels like on the good days.

Art is Life and Life is Struggle Magic.

There’s another layer, too. I have a desire to do more than simply ‘play’ with art; a desire to make works of substance. I often stay in a comfort zone, making pieces that are easy, that I know will be more or less ‘successful’. The awareness that pushing at my boundaries often results in leaps of learning and improvement is what drives my inner critic to be such a barking b*tch. She wants me to use my decades of knowledge and skill to make something meaningful— to commit to something. Like, commit to a series of work that lasts more than a few months. Or to take on the challenge to create something that itself might take months to finish; to be willing to struggle to create something that’s magical, transcendent.

But, you know, no pressure.

So I bargain with myself to sit down in the studio and just start. Start making anything, then just follow it. Sometimes this is joyful and sometimes it is frustrating. This has always been my relationship with art. Sometimes it’s like the most relaxed and comfortable friendship, and at other times it’s an emotional tug-of-war with myself¹.

All of this is part of what makes being an artist (of any kind) both daunting and rewarding. Art is like life. Art is life. And there is no living without struggle.

“When you render the process more convenient, you drain it of its meaning.”²
—Oliver Burkeman

And now I’ve chased my tail, bitten it, and Ouroboros! I’ve talked myself into a circle. I want the process to feel relaxed and easy, but I also want to create more serious or meaningful works. I can’t have it both ways. Some balance between pure play and a level of commitment or dedication is required. There will always be struggle, and there will always be an ebb and flow. Perhaps the most difficult thing is being able to recognize the differences between ebb and avoidance/fear/laziness. Perhaps the most difficult thing is giving oneself a bit of grace.

I know I’m not the only one who runs around on this beaten path of a circle. Do you ever have so many things you want to make that you can’t decide, and so wind up making nothing? Do you ever have to trick yourself into getting into the studio / making art? If so, does it make you question your commitment to being an artist? Let me know in the comments, or just vent about whatever it is you struggle with in the creative process!

As always, thanks for reading. If you’ve enjoyed it, tap that heart below, and maybe share this with someone else with whom it may resonate.

x Liz

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1. As such, most of my substantial projects have been ones in which I worked to a deadline. I used to create elaborate ‘calendars’, each of which took on a unique form (mostly not very useful as an actual calendar). I’d send them out to family, friends, and clients every year. One of these (pictured above) was an atlas of an imaginary world. I spent five months on research, writing, sketching, and designing a thing with a shelf life of only one year, which strikes me as comical— but it was such a satisfying project.

2. This timely quote from reading a post called On Distraction (a perfect distraction while I was in between edits of this post, and not painting), by Bronwen Tate, author of “Ok, But How?”