Why I Try to Give Myself the Opportunity to Make Art Before Deciding my Art is Imperfect

I was having a conversation with a friend recently about writing posts for this very blog, and they were saying that they’ve wanted to write for a while, but have a perfectionistic mindset around creating. It got me thinking a lot about the process of writing, and also my approach to visual art, and I'd love to share!

Pretty much, my thought is this. Perfectionism isn't necessarily the enemy to creating. I get it, we want to be proud of and love and be happy with our art. I want that. I've always wanted that. I don't think those things are the problem. At all. I think having standards/aesthetics/messages that we are striving to get across in our art is actually hugely important. Having a goal for creating makes a lot of sense, and can really help us in getting started. When we have something in mind we want to create, it's easier to create.

Theoretically.

What I think is the problem, is that we have an idea in our head of exactly what we want to make. And we decide before we even put pen to paper, hand to clay, or glitter to slime, that we aren't going to be able to achieve it. Or we get scared that we won't be able to before we give ourselves the chance. I have realized that I need to give myself the chance. I need to give myself the opportunity to make something I like before deciding I'm not going to be able to do it, OR that anything I try to make that doesn't fit this exact concept of what I have in my head before I start, is going to be a failure.

I am my own unique person, so even if things I say are similar to things that have said before, unless I am directly plagiarizing someone else, no matter what I write will be a unique thing that comes from me. I’ve been thinking about this a lot with reference to lyric writing. I received a note once when showing my music to a friend, where he said that he really liked my song writing but that it can be vague sometimes, and he encouraged me to write