So I was down with a cold this weekend and it gave me some time to peruse the rabbit hole they call Pinterest. Of course, I ended up looking at all the amazing art quilts that are collected there. With each new board, it just seemed like the quilts got more and more gorgeous . So much talent. So much creativity. My gosh how can a girl compete?? Why do I even bother trying to make art quilts when I'll never be able to be that good?
And I realized that's the myth my inner critic is trying to sell me.
The reality is that those artists are just people like I'm a person. They started with the same basic building blocks that I have ....a brain and two hands. I remember talking about these same fears with my teacher Jeannette DeNicolis Meyer. She said to me, and I paraphrase, what I needed to remember is that the finish pieces I see online are the artists best works. What we don't see are all the failed attempts, the unfinished projects, and unsuccessful starts. Those don't get paraded on Pinterest. When we're working in our studios though we can't edit out all the failures and just see the successes. We also can't edit out our critical eye which seems to pick out all the bad things and not the good.
So busting the Myth of self doubt are the Facts.
Fact.....Behind every great piece is a bunch of failures.
Fact....Behind every great piece are a lot of hours, sweat and tears.
Fact...Behind every great piece is all the experience of the artist
Fact...Behind every great piece is the artist who only sees the flaws
So what's the moral??
That Theodore Roosevelt was right. Comparison is the Thief of Joy.
Its not a bad thing to enjoy the work of your peers and revel in its beauty. But do not let it steal your joy. Your work, no matter where you are in your creative journey is uniquely and wonderfully you. (For my Christian friends - Psalm 139:14). And that's good enough for Pinterest...and Facebook.
7 comments:
So true! I get caught up in that too. Even when I get into houston I find myself comparing my work to others. I am back on track though and full of the joy of creating!
what a great post!!! there are so many things that change, that get ripped out before it's ready to share on your linky party!! Keep up the good work, your quilting is your finger print, no one else can quilt like you, you bring a different spin to all of it!!
This IS a great post. When I first came on the blog scene, about 10 years ago, my focus at the time was beading. I started my blog to document my entries to the Bead Journal Project. One visitor commented on an entry that it was PRIMITIVE. Well, I guess it was by her standards, but I really LOVED that piece and I still do. Her comment deflated me. But I continued to complete a project each month. My purpose for joining the challenge was to express my inner most thoughts. In doing so I learned a lot about myself. Luckily I have adjusting my thinking about those wonderful projects I see on Pinterest. I see their perfection and only take inspiration from viewing them. I came late on the quilting scene so I can only improve. You are right. Pinterest IS a Rabbit Hole, lol.
xx, Carol
Words of wisdom!
What a great post. I can get overwhelmed by the work of others but I sometimes look and wonder how much joy there was in the producing of the ‘masterpiece’. Yep, i’m Sure a lot of work getting there but I’m OK with the happiness I have in being at a ‘lesser’ level. I’ll keep striving to improve but not at the cost of losing the joy of doing my best.
I absolutely love this post and I am going to share this with my quilting friends as I so often see their joy being stolen by comparing! Thank you for writing this!
Nina-Marie, I added Off the Wall Fridays to my linky party list. So sorry that I'd missed your blog. Thanks for the post. I wholeheartedly agree with your thesis.
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