#9 Who am I doing this for?

I forget, and then I remember.

For the past 4 months I’ve built a habit. Four times a week or so, I make time for ‘artsy things’. I take out the paints, colour markers, or whatever tool I fancy that day and I make *something*. The process is great, the results unremarkable. When my brain pulls me out of the present and sprinkles me with anxiety and doubt, I go back to one question.

Who am I doing this for?

Ever since I immigrated to Canada, there hasn’t been a hobby I didn’t try to turn into a to-do list. Capitalism is skilled at seeping in and demanding I harvest my life and every ounce of joy to transform it into a show of productivity.

I like puzzles! … Maybe I should create a puzzle YouTube channel and monetize it somehow? Or at least I should get my hands on as many free puzzles as I can, complete them as fast as possible, then feel guilty when I leave them in the cupboard for “too long”?

I like making artsy things! … Well now I have to become good at it and become a working artist. On the way I should compare my work to the work of people who have been practicing for decades and then feel shame when I fall short. If I don’t have enough pieces to show at a gallery after *all* this time (a.k.a. ~4 months), it really just shows that I’m wasting my time.

… Hi! Excuse-me, Brain, if I may? Uh, Isn’t this supposed to be fun? Aren’t I supposed to break the cycle of start-stop creativity by keeping the stakes low?

Right, I’m not doing this for capitalism or the cult of productivity, I’m doing this with love for my past selves who thought they were not good enough, and so stopped making time for creativity.

Who am I doing this for?

Doing ‘artsy things’ is bringing me so much joy, it seems strange to keep it a secret. For a while I did, not wanting to jinx this new habit by speaking it out loud, but eventually it came up in conversations with friends and family. Now let me make this clear: if there is one habit that I’ve cultivated for as long as I remember, it’s people-pleasing. My brain naturally catalogs people’s reactions to what I say and do, runs it through the faulty analytical software inside my skull and spits out its findings on loud speakers, i.e. my running thoughts. I don’t want to be harsh with my own brain -it’s doing its best to protect me- but let’s just say the alarm system is not set to the right sensitivity level. (I’m working on it.) Even when the alarm goes past “I will surely die if that person disapproves of me” I have breathing patches and reminders calming the system down. It’s ‘fun’ parenting yourself, right? Well, and also hard work.

My point is, when I show people some of my artsy results, the joy of the process fades away, I only focus on what I imagine are people’s expectations of my work and I find myself to be A DISAPPOINTMENT. This is just scribbling. This is splotches of paints on paper. It doesn’t even look like anything. This is BAD. Hide it, hide it, hide yourself.

Maybe one day I’ll change my mind about getting older, but right now I love it. Top reason being that I know my own bullshit -a lot of it anyway- and I see right through it. I’ve danced through this routine before. I can calm down the alarm system and remind myself that I am safe. My family and friends most likely will not desert me because of my unimpressive watercolour abstract paintings. And anyway, I’m just doing this for the fun of it.

Who am I doing this for?

Somewhere along the way, when I decided making ‘artsy thing’ would be a new habit of mine -when *did* I decide this?- I also thought it would be fun to share the process. I love writing. I journaled a bit as a child and as a teen, but I started putting many words on virtual pages for NaNoWriMo 2012. Those were truly rubbish words, but the following year I did it again, and again. Then in the past few years I wrote a whole book about hiking with dogs, and started a newsletter about outdoor adventures with dogs, and I realized that writing can be SO. MUCH. FUN. The more I write, the more thoughts come pouring out of my head. (Brains are weird. I don’t know how all this stuff can fit in there.) I decided to write about my artsy process, and to share it. With friends and strangers. Like you. Hi!

I guess this is just another layer of people-pleasing with an icing of capitalism. It’s the fear of being judged lacking, of people not liking me enough to buy my art or pay me for my work. And while I can reassure myself with reminders that the stakes are actually very low right now, it doesn’t always work. I can tell myself that I’m not doing this in the hope that I be judged ‘good enough’ and that is true, but sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes I just need to live with the fear, befriend it, and remind myself that I’ve survived so far.

Who am I doing this for?

As much as I’m enjoying the process of making art, I can’t say that I’m impressed with the results so far. When I occasionally look through the notepad and pieces I’ve completed, I’m more often than not unimpressed. There are a few pages on which my gaze lingers, caught by the vibrancy of the colours rather than any aesthetically-pleasing patterns. This is it? A full notepad and only a few pages that get a “pretty colours” comment?

In Writing Down the Bones Natalie Goldberg says that we should expect to write garbage. Only through practicing and creating a lot of garbage paragraphs will be be able to start writing better pieces. I expected the same would be true from visual arts. When I started this project I told myself that I would lower the stakes down to the ground. The parameters were clear: focus on the joy of the process and not the results… And yet I find myself wishing I could speed through the learning, skip a few chapters to a time I’m a little better, a little more in control of the results I produce. Aware of my own bullshit, I know that when I get there, I’ll have moved the goal post again. No amount of ‘being good at art’ will help me feel more proud of myself. The results are insignificant without the memory of the journey. When I look back I’m proud of myself for stepping outside my comfort zone, for daring to be a beginner and being willing to experiment and fail.

If I get better at making art and eventually create pieces that I or others will like, great! But I am not doing this for a rosy point in the future. I am doing this for myself, in the moment. I’m doing this to follow my curiosity, to find out what happens if I sew dry autumn leaves onto a canva, or use a brush pen on water soaked paper. I’m doing it for the me who wonders what will happens if I keep experimenting for 6 months, a year, or 10. Who will I become then?