Artist's Way: Week One

I didn't post about the first week yet, so here goes.

Week One: Recovering A Sense Of Safety
This first week is basically about voicing my internal critic, and then countering that with affirmations. Essentially, it's putting my negative internal beliefs into words, and then making it okay to actually say something postive, instead.

Or, something like that.

I think it's about making it okay to say that I AM an artist, without feeling like I need to negate that with, "...but not really. I mean, I'm not REALLY an artist. I'm just an amateur."

I've started Artist's Way three times (this is my third) and I always feel like skipping the first chapter. I feel like I know right where my negative beliefs about myself as an artist, and artists in general, come from. I don't mean to place blame or anything, but I can trace it right back to being about 9 or 10 years old, after years of people telling me that I had artistic talent, and telling my dad (who had been an art teacher, himself) that maybe I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. I remember very clearly what he said, "To be a really successful artist, you have to be the best of the best of the best. No one is going to put you in an art gallery if you're just average." Thanks, Dad. I know he was just trying to be helpful (realistic). But that planted that seed of doubt that I just wasn't good enough. Good, but not good enough.

I'm really not saying that it's all my dad's fault, not at all. But it's an example of how easy it is for creative tendencies to be... well, delayed.

OK. So first of all, that formed my belief that to be a real artist, you had to have a show in a gallery. It also completely blocked out any other variations of being an artist: graphic designer, illustrator, interior designer, etc. You aren't a real artist, since you won't be shown in a gallery.

How silly is that? But that's what my core critic tells me.

Hence this tentative little dream of having a show in a coffee house or something. I struggle with it because partially I think I shouldn't need to prove this to myself -- I know it's not true that you have to have an art show to be an artist. But, I still want it. It would be an accomplishment for myself. Like the marathon; something I never thought I could do.

A quote from this chapter that rings true for me: "We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic."

Let's change that.