Impossible Standards and Why They Might Be Good For You

I recently went to a highly respected artist in our area for a mentoring session, and while nearly all of his advice, critiques and encouragement were valuable, he said one thing that I disagree with: stop comparing yourself to great masters and just let you be you.

In the context of our conversation this made perfect sense.  I had been talking about my sense of disappointment because I could not solve a visual problem - visual logic that I could see and articulate in the work of others, but could not translate into my own painting. At first I felt relieved - just stop comparing myself to impossible standards.  But soon I found myself in a philosophical argument about this idea - and I wondered if there wasn't another side to the "let you be you" suggestion. 

Artists come to their work with various motives, and their level of personal enjoyment and satisfaction stems from just as many unique sources.  For me, while I do enjoy the physical act of pushing paint and color around, my joy is fueled by a desire to understand aspects of painting and visual intelligence, and to translate that knowledge into my own ability to create paintings that meet seemingly impossible standards.

Sometimes this means my painting is going downhill, that my effort to discover a visual truth leads to surfaces that are over worked and paintings that are scraped down and re-painted.  It means that at the end of a long day I step back and look at the work and feel totally discouraged. 

And if I were willing to tell myself, just let you be you, I might settle, copy, play it safe, feel I was ruining perfectly good paintings because I felt dissatisfied.

 

Left: Walters Plums, first version.  Right: Walter's Plums, reworked

When I finished the first version of Walter's Plums I felt I had been able to move forward, visually.  But the more I studied this painting, the more I felt that it was visually - and intellectually - unfinished.  That I was only a few steps across the bridge instead of safely on the other side.

And the issue was agrivated because I had already posted this painting and received a lot of positive feedback.  So the argument became whether with version one of Walter's Plums, I should just accept "me be me," or whether I needed to put it back on the easel and push myself further into what I was trying to do.

The idea of me being me is as much the desire to seek a higher expectation as it is to accept the current limitations of my understanding of craft.  My commitment to painting has always carried with it several layers of meaning, trying to understand what carries the message. How does the artist translate an intellectual, emotional idea into something concrete and visual? What makes this work beautiful, and that work mundane?

So I put Walter's Plums back on the easel.  I decided not to stop halfway without trying to find a better solution.  Pushing myself is as much a part of me being me as accepting that I have a unique style of painting that isn't going to look like everyone else.  But it is a style that will continue evolving toward a higher level of visual intelligence, no matter how difficult.

It may feel difficult to evaluate advice you receive because you understand the underlying truth.  But it is just as necessary to listen to your own advice and follow your own path. 

Here is another painting from the "Plums Series" - which will last as long as the plums...

 

Three Plums, Oil, 14 x 18 © 2012

 

Comments

[sue smith]

Christine - exactly!

[Christine debrosky]

Kudos to you for the constant desire to improve on your journey. I think that most of us wish to be the best that we can...it involves constant tweaking without overworking... a real tight rope!

[sue smith]

Thanks Sandy - and in fairness to my mentor, he was talking about the idea that when we focus intently upon the work of someone like John Singer Sargent, and then compare it to our own style, we risk being blind to what is powerful in our own form of expression by setting impossible standards.

That said, I have seen numerous experts tell students that setting high standards is a pathway to discouragement and failure - and perhaps the beginning artist would find this to be true.

[Sandy Merritt]

I totally agree with your artist theory. Reaching above and beyond our levels of competence is who we are. I will never stop learning. Thanks for sharing.

[sue smith]

Maggie - well said!

[sue smith]

Barbara - thank you. I've always valued artists who could share more than just the basics and I try to pay it forward by raising questions that encourage exploration. I'm glad you didn't *unsubscribe - no longer relevant* !

[Maggie]

Sue, thanks for a thoughtful post. All three of these paintings are beautiful, each expressing their own visual logic.

I agree with you *and* with your mentor. Artist's need to be dissatisfied with their work, and always stretching to another level. We look to artists we admire to know what things look like on that level. Yet we need to, at some point, not compare ourselves to other artists, but simply paint. I think that what we've learned from them stays in our hearts and resonates as we work.

[Barbara]

Sue, I find the 2nd painting more satisfying than the 1st. It has a cohesion the 1st one seems to lack. I find parts of the 3rd painting positively exquisite.Thank you for sharing your artistic insights. I often find them thought provoking and it is kind of you to give so freely of yourself.

[sue smith]

Jo-Ann - thank you! My thinking is that the first painting relied on scraping with the palette knife to soften and abstract shapes, but lost connected forms in the process, while the second version is built around purposeful brush marks, and connected masses. The color was also evenly divided between the greens and pinks in version one, and in version two I shifted to a green dominant approach. And of course I could also just be completely wrong!

[sue smith]

Pat - your observation is very insightful and one I hadn't considered, but certainly worth thought. I agree, the mood did change, and this is sometimes the risk when deciding to rework a painting - we will lose some of what we captured in the initial thought for the sake of trying to further develop the larger idea.