Have You Discovered Your Hidden Support System?

I spent most of yesterday gathering up the courage to call my photographer and set an appointment to bring in the ten new works on paper that I've been staring at for the past few months.  When I finally called, he answered on the first ring.

Yes, he remembered me.  And how did those photographs he took a year and a half ago work out for me?

Very well, I politely told him, and could he possibly have some time today or tomorrow.

Yes. He could.  So I was stuck, committed.  I kept telling myself that all I was doing was getting professional shots taken of pieces that proved too difficult for me to shoot, with their reflective surfaces and subtle colors.  It wasn't like I had to follow through on anything else, like sending them off to that juried event with the deadline in two weeks.   

I do this to myself on a regular basis, I realize, having no legitimate reason to feel so insecure.  But that seems to be the nature of my particular creative beast.  Give me a compliment or accept me into some organization and immediately the tiny voice in my head starts crowing over the imminent discovery that I am, yes, an artistic fraud. 

But he is expecting me.  We have a nice visit, I leave the work with instructions to return today. 

What can I say?  The meeting today was wonderful. Not because he thought the work was so fantastic that he couldn't breathe -- no.  I think it was because he's also an artist, working on his own version of that creative dream.  We were two creatives meeting where our paths crossed, and paused to share a moment of encouragement and support.  He told me how he had started doing stock photography; his wife called while we were talking to share the news that one of his images had earned a "Flame."  (Apparently, when an image has been downloaded 100 times, it earns a flame.)  We talked about the art market in general and artists we both knew, how everyone was feeling the slowdown and looking for answers.  Then he sat me down in front of his computer and we collaborated on the presentation of my images, while he instructed me on some new tips and tricks in Photoshop, and how to save the files on my desktop.

When I left two hours later I couldn't understand why it had been so difficult for me to make that initial call.   

Creating art is often an isolating experience. At times, we might forget that others are feeling equally isolated.  Our fears keep us from opening up to the very people who understand exactly where we're coming from, and we miss opportunities to discover our hidden support systems.  Yes, there are scary parts to success and to failure that isolation magnifies,  but just beyond that studio door there are hundreds of hidden sources of creative support.  We are not on this journey alone. 

Believe it.

Comments

[Fiona Purdy]

Sue - I thought I was the only artist who felt like this!!! I've been trying to figure out why I do this for the longest time and am no closer to the answer. Is it laziness? I think I just have to do things and not think about them. I just take a deep breath and plunge right in.

I'm glad I found your blog.

[Bonnie Luria]

Sue- I'll be your companion if you'll be mine? Deal?

You bring so much more than your stunning art to this site- Your perpetual search for learning to acknowledge what we as artists are meant to do and how we might consider doing it.

I too, always feel better after reading your entries.

[sue]

Thank you, Bonnie! I really needed to hear that -- and I totally get what Woody was talking about. Isn't it funny how creative humans are more inclined to doubt themselves than they are to embrace the wonderful gifts they've been given? If only we could insure that there would always be a companion in those corridors Woody was talking about! But...maybe we can.

[Bonnie Luria]

Sue- it's unimaginable to me that you could use the words, myself and fraud in the same sentence. Yet I totally understand the wacky process of self doubt all creative people experience.
The pondering over something is so much more punitive than the doing of something.

I think you did all of us a great service by posting this universal quandry.

The opening up of ourselves to other creative souls is so good for us- we who paint in our solitary caves most of the time.

I think it was Woody Allen who said " One door opens and another closes, but it's the corridors inbetween that I hate"
( with forgiveness Woody if it's a grasp of paraphrasing )
You see what I mean.

[vivien]

a good post and one I can empathis with totally.

I always end up full of doubts when showing a body of work to a new gallery and would loooove an agent to take that stress off my hands! I'm fine, like you, once I'm there and chatting and they are responding - it's that horrible gap between arranging to go and getting there :>O