Over the past few months I’ve been experimenting with what I like to call Low Risk Creation. By this I mean allowing myself to mess around with paints and spend my time making whatever I want with no real agenda. Creating because it is simply an enjoyable way to spend my time. Who knows what can come from it.
Of course, constant changing of styles and subjects can create inconsistent work and leave little room for deeper study and exploration of a subject, style or medium. However, too much emphasis on one thing can lead to stagnation and one of the worst feelings of all: boredom.
There comes a point, actually scratch that, there comes many points, in an artist’s career where things feel overwhelmingly... flat. A ceiling is reached and a cloud of uncertainty lingers over which direction to go in.
So where does that leave the artist? I say it provides them with (and apologies for the lack of a less cliched metaphor here) a blank canvas.
At its core, true creative work is meant to be FUN. Art is the ultimate opportunity to be free and expressive. Being an artist means you allow yourself the honour of having a point of view and making something out of thin air, simply because you can and the process is really, really enjoyable.
I’ve found that spending three hours making something extremely mediocre is more preferable to spending three hours mulling over how disheartening the creative block is. No one is going to die because of a bad painting or a bad photograph or a bad poem. But the artist’s spirit can die when creative work is left for far too long.
In the end, so what if the output turns out to be a pile of rubbish. The only person judging something that didn’t quite turn out right is our own ego and the ego is the devil.
So my advice to anyone struggling out there with what they want to create next is this: spend three hours making something absolutely shit and revel in every delicious moment doing it. There is always a little magic to be found in all creation. It’s your right as an artist to make. Don’t waste it.