Take this Perfectionist - Please
Our inner perfectionist helps us get to the point where our work is good and we are ready to let it go - but it's necessary to keep the perfectionist from stopping us in the end, because it doesn't know when to stop.
How amazing is that? Words of wisdom via email this morning from my most-excellent friend, Tani. Her advice was in response to the array of feelings I described having after putting my art into the hands of the universe (i.e., for sale). My creative process suddenly lurched out of gear and landed in a quagmire. I was questioning color choices, details, decisions that had once felt automatic, almost like the work had been simply flowing through me rather than a result of conscious effort.
Having suffered writer's block in the past, I was familiar with the signs, as well as the remedy: the need to focus on the process rather than the outcome. To play and make altered art and honor the insatiable longing to create. Daily. And to cherish kindred spirits like Tani, a fellow artist and writer (and perfectionist), who also has psoriatic arthritis, the auto-immune disorder that restructured my life. She is another silver lining in the cloud of chronic illness - a wonderful, close friend, a steadying presence on this altered path.
Comments
When you say you are putting your art out in the universe (for sale) you didn't say where - where do you sell your pieces?