How to Cultivate Creative Confidence As an Artist

Antrese Wood: Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode of the Savvy Painter Podcast. If you are new here, welcome. I'm so glad you found the podcast. If you've been listening for a while, welcome back.

This is the first of a four-part series. What you are about to listen to is a replay of a live event that I gave a while back. Gosh, I think it's been about two years already, but I listened to it again recently and I realized that I just had to share it with you as a podcast episode because this is powerful, powerful stuff.

When you are truly confident in your art as an artist and in your painting abilities, your entire practice changes. You create more work, you effortlessly show it, and you engage more with your collectors. It's an upward spiral that just keeps getting better and better and better as you grow.

One last thing before we begin, I created special worksheets for every single one of these live events when I did them. I want to make sure you get those as well so you get the full experience. To grab yours, just go ahead and check out the show notes for this episode. There will be a link to pick up your worksheet for this episode. Okay. Let's just dive in.

Today's call is focused on creative confidence, one of my favorite things to talk about. A self-confident artist is going to think that they are good, they are capable, they are worthy, they're going to think they're strong, they're going to think they're competent. A self-confident artist knows that it's okay to fail so they take risks. We learn from our mistakes and we grow more quickly.

As we develop this capacity, we learn to grow, we learn to do things for ourselves faster and easier. That's our topic for today. You all probably know who I am. You likely recognize my voice, but you have not met me before.

I'm Antrsese Wood. I'm the host of the Savvy Painter Podcast. I'm an artist just like you all. I'm a life coach. One of the things that I am most passionate about, aside from my art, is helping other artists grow into confident and powerful voices. This is how I think I can have the most impact in the world.

That is by helping as many artists as I can, because I truly, truly believe that our work matters in this world because we remind people of the beauty in this world. We remind them of what it means to be here having this human experience. We help them to feel, we help them to connect, and we help them to empathize. That is what we do as artists. That is why your work matters, not just to you, but to all of us. I know, because I know I've worked with a lot of artists, and I am one of myself, I know that some of you may doubt that sometimes, and I get it.

You've been taught, either implicitly or explicitly, that your work doesn't really matter, that it's not important, that there are other things that are more important in this world than what you do in your studio. I have this belief that you've been conditioned to believe those lies. They taught you those in school. They taught you that at home maybe. We see it in the movies.

We see things like artists are super flighty. If you ever noticed, if you watch a movie about artists, they all have some like alcoholism, drug addiction, we are just tortured and horrible, and just all of that. You can't see a single art movie without some reference to how tortured we are.

Yes, we have our problems, but I don't think it's quite that bad all the time. I'm not experiencing that. I know that a lot of you are very passionate about your work, you're very committed to your work. That is why we are here and that is why we do what we do.

All this week, we're going to be talking about why your art matters, and we're going to start off today by talking about creative confidence. What you create when you are centered, present, and confident in your creative process, that is what we are focused on today.

I think, for me, magic happens when we have a wholehearted belief in our capacity to create and handle whatever it is that comes up in the studio. I think a lot about how I felt as a little girl, drawing on the floor of my bedroom, there is magic and awe and wonder in what we do when we are in that state of flow when we lose self-consciousness, we're not thinking of anything other than what we're doing, and we are not criticizing or judging ourselves, that is when the magic happens.

Creative confidence allows us to tap into that space, to call it up intentionally and on purpose. We can paint and we can draw and we can create knowing that we can handle whatever happens on the canvas. We're free, we're bold with our mark-making, and we take risks and we play. We are very, very serious about our art, but we don't take it so seriously. That to me is what creative confidence means. I love this.

When you feel confident in your work, you create more. When you feel confident in your work, you are less hesitant while you are painting so your brush strokes are more convicted. When you feel very confident in what you're doing, when you have that level of self-confidence in yourself, in your work, then it shows up in your mark-making. When you are confident in your work, what you're not doing is you're not comparing yourself or your work to other people.

You are completely tuned in to what your inner voice is saying, and what you want to create, and that is exactly what we are going for. Let's talk now about what is creative confidence and a little bit about what it is and what it isn’t.

Creative confidence comes from having a rock-solid belief in yourself, in who you are as a person, and who you are as an artist. You know that even if you don't have all of the answers, you believe in your capacity to figure it out. I think a lot of people have the mistaken belief that you can only have that kind of confidence if it is given to you by somebody else or if you earn it with some sort of achievement.

The good news and the bad news is that this kind of confidence that we're talking about, it's an inside job. It can only come from you. Nobody else can give it to you and also nobody else can take it away from you. That's the good news and the bad news. It's on you and you own it. Nobody can take it from you.

There are two kinds of confidence when we think about confidence. One of them comes from experience. For example, I have mixed black with white together enough times that I am confident that I can mix a gray color. I don't have any doubt in my mind about that.

I know how to open a tube of paint. I've done it so many times that I don't even think about it. I know how to ride a bike and I can walk down the stairs without falling unless my dogs come running by, then it's like an iffy situation.

I also am confident that if I pick up a tube of paint and I cannot open it, I don't make it mean that I'm not capable of opening a tube of paint. If I pick up a tube of paint and I can't open it, I'm not thinking to myself, "Oh my God, I'm such an idiot. I don't know how to open a tube of paint." That thought never occurred to me.

Instead, I look for why it won't open. I get some pliers, I break the seal. I don't make the fact that when I try to open a tube of paint and I can't do it, I don't make that mean anything is wrong with me, I look for the solution. That's how confident I am in my ability to open a jar of paints, open a tube of paint, whatever it is.

But if I'm doing something that I don't have experience with, something that I have never done before, that requires a different kind of confidence, because I'm not able to draw on all the other times that I have done it. I'm not able to draw on experience. I don't have evidence in my hand or in my mind that I can do that so I need a different kind of experience. I need a different kind of confidence.

That confidence that I need when I haven't done something before is self-confidence. Okay, so there's a difference between confidence that comes from experience and self-confidence. Self-confidence is my belief that I have the capacity to figure it out. I have the ability to do it.

For example, I have never carved a life-sized figure from a piece of marble before. In fact, I've never done a life-size sculpture from anything. That's not something I've ever done before. But I trust in my ability to figure it out. I trust in my ability to try my best, to fail, to learn from my failures, and to notice where is the skill gap. What is the thing that I don't know how to do that I need to learn how to do in order to create this sculpture? How can I do that?

Do I need to find somebody who knows that and learn from them? Do I need to play with trial and error? What is the thing that I don't know and how will I solve that? I trust in my ability to figure it out. I trust in my ability to try my best, to fail, to learn from my failures, and then apply that knowledge that comes from my attempts to the next attempt for as many times as it takes.

I know that I can experience failure. I can experience frustration. I can experience disappointment or any other emotion that comes up while I'm doing it. If we have that, if we have that knowledge about ourselves that I am willing and able to experience any emotion, then I can create whatever I want with that.

For those of you who've done this before, you know, I'm not saying I can do it on the first try. I think that's very unlikely that I would be able to do a life-size sculpture on the first try. I'm not saying it will be a masterpiece. I'm not saying it will be the most amazing sculpture that has ever been created in the history of sculpture.

I think a lot of opinions would come up about that. But notice, I'm also willing to believe in myself and my capacity to create. I can allow mistakes without making them mean that I lack intelligence or that I can't learn the skills that I need to create what I want to create.

I trust myself to be able to identify where those skill gaps are, and then take the steps necessary to close those gaps. I have a suspicion if I tried to do a life-size sculpture that probably an arm would fall off or a nose would fall off of the sculpture, not mine. Think about that concept when you're thinking about how hard am I willing to believe in myself and my capacity to get what I want, to do the things that I want, and what stands in my way.

Here's the amazing thing, you guys, usually what stands in your way is an emotion. It is our unwillingness to feel an emotion. Once I break it down to that, for me, I love my art, I love painting, and I love what we do so much, there is no emotion.

The idea that the only thing standing between me and the thing that I want is I don't want to feel frustrated. I don't want to look stupid when I try something new. I don't want to allow anyone the possibility to think that I don't know what I'm doing or that I'm not talented or that I'm not good enough. I'm not willing to feel that.

Those are the reasons that usually stop us from creating what we want to create. When we recognize that it's just a feeling, and we can feel things and not die, even though our brain might have other things to say about that, it gets so much easier. It just seems like to me, when I think about the things that I haven't done because I don't want to feel frustrated, disappointed, or rejected, I'm just like, “Really? That's it?”

A vibration in my body is what kept me from that. When you actively bring self-confidence to your work, you're not going to make the colors on your canvas that don't align with your intent mean anything. Think about that. That's all it is when the colors aren't right, it's because it doesn't match up with what you have in your mind and what your intention was.

But if you have self-confidence, you know you have the ability to figure it out. You have the ability to mix another color. You have the ability to create the combination that achieves your intent. You are willing to mix another color, to be frustrated, to get it wrong again, to feel that frustration, to let it pass, to feel disappointment, and not make it mean that you're incapable of understanding color. That's not true.

You are willing to feel any emotion and not make it mean anything about you because you value your painting more than you want to avoid negative emotions. When you have that confidence, there is nothing that you won't create. There is not a painting, not a project, no creative goal that you aspire to that you won't create. When you get rejected from a gallery, because you will at some point, if you're trying to get into a gallery, you won't make it mean anything about yourself. You will take the data and figure it out.

Where do you want to be? Does it have to be that particular gallery? Do you need more time? Do they even have an opening? There are all these problems that you can solve that don't include, “I don't know how to paint. I'm not good enough. I'll never be good enough. This isn't working. My third-grade teacher was right.”

Give me one area where you do feel confident. Hopefully in your painting, but it can be anywhere else. Tell me something that you feel confident about and why you feel confident. I'll go first. If I'm just thinking about my 100 painting project, I feel confident that I can decide on purpose what I want to focus my attention on.

I feel confident in my ability to explore all the mediums that I have all over the place now. Then I can have fun with that. I can follow my curiosity and delight in whatever it is that excites me on that given day. Just notice all of the areas where you already feel confident. Notice what your thoughts are about those.

If you are one of those people, for example, that answered, Jane said, choosing the materials that fit best to my art, why? Why do you feel confident about that? What are the thoughts you have about choosing the materials that allow you to feel confident? For everybody who talked about color, your knowledge of color, what is it that you know about color or your abilities with color that allows you to feel confident with that?

Self-confidence is something that you create for yourself. The way that we do that is by curating our thoughts. Some things are going to come naturally to us or some things feel like, “Oh, I'm allowed to feel that way because I have lined up all this experience with it.”

For those of you who mentioned color or drawing, you probably think that you have confidence with it because you have done it so many times. But I want to challenge you a little bit with that because every day, you are challenging yourself in new ways. Every time you face a blank canvas, I'm going to assume that you're not painting the same painting that you did yesterday, that you're creating something new.

You're not that guy in Amelie who paints the same painting a hundred thousand times or however many. But I'm going to assume that whatever it is that you put in there about your abilities, you're not doing the same painting over and over and over again.

When you are facing a new painting, when you have that blank canvas in front of you, what are some of the thoughts you have about your capabilities that allow you to believe, “I will create this painting that I've never done before, this thing that I'm challenging myself with,” small or big challenges, you have the capacity.

Somewhere in you, you have this belief, “I can do this,” even though you have no idea how this painting is going to turn out. On the flip side, we have a lot of thoughts that are not quite as helpful as the ones that get us into that self-confidence, that creativity, and that curiosity mode.

One of the ways that we create self-confidence, we create those emotions on purpose is by curating our thoughts, is by having the awareness that that thought isn't going to serve me so I'm going to choose a different one that does serve me, that does help me through this.

We have a lot of thoughts that we default to. Thoughts that we have thought for so long, they just come naturally and it just feels real and true. Those are our beliefs. We have thought of them so many times that we don't even question them anymore. We just accept them as fact and as truth.

Those are the ones that often get in our way because we don't even realize that they're there, they're so ingrained. Most of those we've inherited from other people. At this point, they're worn out. They're not necessary anymore. They're not helpful.

Here are a few examples I want to give you of some past recycled thoughts that I have experienced, that I have caught with myself. Failure is a weakness. Making a mistake is a problem. I don't know how. I should know better by now. That's a big one. That is a big one. I should know better by now.

Past thoughts that used to be default thinking for me is rejection is the worst thing that can happen. I think that I didn't even realize that that was there. It was just so internalized. Another one that I see very often is other people's opinions define me.

Here's one, see if this one resonates with anyone. Fear means I'm not confident. Here's another one, confident people are comfortable and do not feel afraid. Those are some thoughts that can be very, very insidious. They can be very sneaky. They can be very stealthy, and they will come in and wreak havoc on your art-making, your art career.

If you actually believe, if you truly, truly believe that confident people are comfortable and don't feel afraid, then when you are uncomfortable and when you feel afraid, it will stop you.

You can take action, we can do things even if we're uncomfortable. Think about that. There are lots of things that we can do even if we feel uncomfortable. That's what I wanted to share with you today. Now I'd like to offer some coaching.

Hello.

Nancy: Hi, Antrese.

Antrese Wood: Hi, Nancy.

Nancy: Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what the format is for this, but I sometimes lack confidence as an older artist. I feel my work is good. It can always get better, whatever. I have moved. I'm now in the West. I live in Montana. Because of space considerations, I've become a landscape painter or a plein air painter.

I'm selling my work, but I need to approach galleries that show this work. There's a lot of fear around that. I've done some cold calls and it's been okay, but they all say I need to be larger. I need to be painting larger. But I think underneath it is a lot of just being afraid of all of it, just fear.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, so let's take a look at that. What is the fear telling you?

Nancy: The fear is like, “Who do you think you are? It's too late.” I came from really more of an abstract earlier art life. Now this landscape is reinventing the wheel.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, so what is the problem if you are painting in a different way now? Tell me, why is that the problem?

Nancy: Well, I think that my experience with the art world is that you have to establish these benchmarks. I've gotten into a couple of shows here. I've been selling on my own. My resume has a big gap in it now.

Antrese Wood: How do you know what these benchmarks are?

Nancy: Past experiences told me that.

Antrese Wood: Okay. Are those past experiences with how many galleries or how many experiences have had that tell you that?

Nancy: Well, it was my New York experience.

Antrese Wood: Okay.

Nancy: It's a different landscape now here. This isn't entirely different, but I found out that that's a pun, I didn't mean it to be, but I found out now that everything is different now after the pandemic. Everything is different. I am different.

Antrese Wood: Okay, everything is different.

Nancy: Why isn't that different?

Antrese Wood: Yeah. I mean, let's check it out. Right?

Nancy: Right.

Antrese Wood: What if everything's different and it's different in your favor? The art world has certainly changed. Everyone, I want you to think about this for a second. We have the internet. That changes things significantly. I think a lot of us take it for granted now, but think of how much the internet changed the art world. What does that bring up for you, Nancy?

Nancy: Well, I do sell on social media sometimes. I guess it brings up things that I'm not secure in knowing about. So do I jump and know about that? In the meantime, it's just a lot of different balls in the air at the same time.

Antrese Wood: What's the worst thing if you did need to learn something different? What is underneath that?

Nancy: Oh, I suppose I probably feel that I would not get it and I would fail. I suppose it's a failure.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. Listen, I saw a lot of people nodding their heads as you were talking. Oftentimes, there's the fear of failure. On the surface, we all get that. Nobody likes to be rejected. But the other thing about the fear of failure with regards to, “Oh, I've reinvented myself and I need to learn something new,” if we dive a little deeper into that, sometimes the fear is, “Well, there's just not enough time. What if I'm off on the wrong path? What if I ‘do it wrong’? What if ‘I'm wasting my time’?” All these other things come up. “I've started late, Time's running out. Now's the time when I have to make it,” does that resonate?

Nancy: Yes, it does.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. Okay, so that is really the fear is what if I'm wrong? What if it doesn't work? While we're thinking that, while we're experiencing that, we're resisting what might happen. By resisting that, we're not creating anything right now. So we spin in this, “I'm worried that this isn't going to work. So I'm going to delay it. I'm going to procrastinate it. I'm going to overthink it.”

All that happens at that moment is your brain is really trying hard to protect you because there’s that part of you that believes this isn't going to work and it's going to be a waste of time and I don't want to feel, how would you feel?

Nancy: Well, I think probably I would worry that it was such a time drain and in the end, there's a very empty feeling. It's projecting failure, I guess, ahead of the learning curve. It detracts from what I really enjoy doing. I see in the chat avoiding disappointment, I'm sure that's part of it, although I've had a lot of disappointment and rejection.

Actually, it's been really a thrilling ride for me to experience another life in my work. It's been great. But I'm ambitious and I don't know, you're right, that's a negative thought pattern that gets in the way of achieving whatever it is I want to get to.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, so when we're trying to resist and avoid those feelings like disappointment is something that somebody mentioned in the chat. That is a very common one that we try to resist. Nancy, you actually said, “I would feel empty if that were to happen,” so whatever the feeling is, when you really consider it, if you had to describe the physical sensation, what you feel in your body when you feel that feeling, when you feel empty, for example, what do you think it would feel like, Nancy?

Nancy: Well, it mostly goes to not valuing myself, for example, or the feeling is I'm not angered sometimes, but rarely. It doesn't go in that direction.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. Those are all thoughts you have about it. But can you access anything in your body? Like the feeling of emptiness?

Nancy: Exhaustion.

Antrese Wood: Where do you feel exhaustion in your body?

Nancy: Oh, it's I'm connected, mind, body, the whole thing. It could be because what I do is well, everybody, it’s a physical action that I go outside. The minute I go outside and I'm out there painting, it's like it's okay. Everything is okay.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, so this is like an interesting thing to think about for everybody. If you had to describe what a feeling is to an alien from outer space, let's say, who doesn't know human emotions, I like to think of data from Star Trek, or the Trekkie fans out there, data has no human emotions. He has no idea what this is.

If I were to describe it to him, if I feel disappointed, I typically feel it in the pit of my stomach, and it's a little bit burning, and it expands and contracts. That's the feeling. If I had to explain that to a person from outer space to data from Star Trek and I was like, “So I feel disappointed and empty,” and data is like, “I don't know what that means. What is this feeling you speak of?” I try to explain it to him like, “Well, my stomach hurt. I feel like this vibration of my stomach and I get hot and I'm burning.” He's like, “Okay, but you're not on fire, right?” I'm like, “No, not on fire. I just feel warm. I feel very, very warm and all of this.”

That is the physical sensation that we are trying so hard to avoid. When we resist it, we resist that physical sensation, we create it in advance, we create more of it, and our brain really, truly believes we're going to die if we feel that. We feel like our brain really doesn't know the difference. It really believes if that happens, game over. So your brain is going to do everything it can to keep you alive.

That is why when you feel this way, and you're like, “Nope, not going to do it,” or “I felt disappointment before and I don't like that. I'm not going to do it,” that is why we resist it. That is why we refuse to feel it.

But when you really think about what it actually is and you get down to the brass tacks of it, “It is a vibration in my body. I don't really like it. It's uncomfortable sometimes. But am I willing to feel that while I go about trying to get into this gallery? Am I willing to feel that buzziness in my body that's a little bit uncomfortable while I put my work out to these different galleries and I get five rejections, 10 rejections, 25 rejections? Can I feel that and submit again? Can I feel that and take in the feedback that I get and make a decision about what I want to do again?” That's really what we're talking about. What comes up for you with that, Nancy?

Nancy: Well, I was thinking about the mind connection. I guess I'm not in touch with that really, that what my body does with rejection, except that, for example, I don't have any problem walking in cold call to a gallery. You can do that here. You don't necessarily need an appointment. I can do that. That, in fact, is quite exciting because it doesn't matter if the rejection is there or not. The action is something that I feel like I've done something.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, yeah, so that's what you want to hang on to, right? There's other thoughts you have. Okay, so just notice when you think, “This is exciting,” or “I can handle this,” or “This is fun,” then you're willing to go in and put your workout. But when you think, “I'm running out of time, I'm getting too old for this, I changed my mind again,” notice what you do. That's where you want to bring your awareness.

Nancy: Yeah, to change that thought pattern, right?

Antrese Wood: Yeah, just start to notice, Nancy, which thoughts are helpful? Which are the thoughts that produce feelings that push you into the actions that you want to take? Then what are the thoughts like, and you can look at the past, what are the thoughts that make me think it's fun to go to cold call the gallery and to just walk in? What are those thoughts? I want more of that. I'm going to purposely choose those thoughts so that I continue to take the action that I want to take. Okay?

Nancy: Yeah, thank you.

Antrese Wood: Awesome, you've got this.

Nancy: Okay.

Antrese Wood: Carol.

Carol: I was wondering if you had any actionable thoughts, advice, things I can do for habits of self-sabotage. The thing that's even scarier than failure is success. I started doing a workshop with children in my local nonprofit. My second class that I'm teaching is in like two days. I know the things that I should have been doing to prepare for this. There's so many ways to just get distracted by other things like my own kids and whatever else.

Then even like, just aside from that, I know what I should be doing to cultivate this consistent studio practice. I know the apps that you take and even a weird part of me can see off in the distance that yes, I could be the artist that I want to be, but it's just, well, I don't know why.

Antrese Wood: If you take that example of this class that you're preparing for, what are you telling yourself when you know what you want to do, you know what you need to do and you don't do it? Give me an example of what happens.

Carol: And you're going, “Just don't think about it. Oh, I gotta get the garage cleaned out. I gotta feed the baby.” Or I'm like, “It's fine. I can just watch YouTube videos and I'll just wing it. I got myself all through college the exact same way and flying by the seat of my pants.” The first class wasn't a failure, but if I had prepared better, it would have been a better class. I know how I can do better, answered your question?

Antrese Wood: You did, yeah. You have from your past examples of how you were able to wing it and it worked out for you. That is like your familiar thought that like, "Oh, I can just wing it." That has been helpful to you. It has gotten you to where you are now. It has served you in some way.

Now you want to choose a different way. Now, maybe you've outgrown it. Maybe you want something different so now you're choosing a different way of doing things. What happens is when we have these old familiar thoughts, they literally are pathways in our brain. They're like these neural connections. The more we do it, the stronger that connection gets.

If you think of like, I think a really neat way to think about it is if you're in an open field and you're just surrounded by all this grass, you can look around, you can go 360 degrees. You can go in any direction you want. You choose the direction, you walk that way. As you walk that way, the grass gets pushed down a little bit. Then you're there again, and you're like, “Oh, I see a little path. I'm going to take that one. That looks easier.”

You keep doing that. Then you create a trail, and then you create a road. Then pretty soon, that's just your default way that you go. When you want to change, change your thought too. So you going to “I'm just going to wing it,” that's what your brain does. It's like, “Oh, I got it. I know how to do this. Let's go. We do that.” Now you want to choose a different way. It's a little bit more uncomfortable.

It's harder because there's not a path already worn for it so it requires even more effort on your part to do that. But you know you want to do it. When you're there and you're choosing to go clean out the garage, what are you thinking about, for example, if you're like, “Oh I can do this one little thing to make this easier, I'm going to choose to clean out the garage first,” what's happening, do you think?

Carol: I'm just putting off the inevitable, probably panicking at six o'clock at night, feeling like an idiot, because I know I can do better.

Antrese Wood: Okay, yeah, so that is the default thinking that “Oh, okay, I should have done it differently. I know I can do better.”

Carol: Yeah.

Antrese Wood: What do you know about your ability to teach this class already?

Carol: I can get down on kids' levels pretty well, and I'm very comfortable and I enjoy talking.

Antrese Wood: Okay, yeah, and you taught one class before and you felt like it went well?

Carol: Overall, yeah. It was a little awkward at first, like an open studio kind of thing, [inaudible] but it was good. It was good.

Antrese Wood: It was good. Okay, so you know you can do it. What is one thing that you would like to do differently the next time you teach the class? Just pick one.

Carol: I don't want to feel like I'm floundering and struggling to capture their attention. I guess it's not like that [inaudible]. It's like, I want them to get better at presenting why they should invest in themselves for this class that they are taking, whether they had to, or their parents long to, or they wanted to.

Antrese Wood: What do you think you need to feel in order to create that for them?

Carol: A bizarre balance of enthusiasm and then not taking yourself too seriously.

Antrese Wood: Okay. Okay. So what would make you feel enthusiastic about teaching these kids?

Carol: Showing these kids that grown artists can make ugly art and it's totally fine.

Antrese Wood: There you go. You can do that. You can get enthusiastic about it and insert some humor, it seems like, right?

Carol: Yeah. Yeah.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. Okay. So this is how you do it is like, grab that thought and just focus on that one thought for the next class. You are fully capable of teaching this class, you know how to create arts. All of us on this call, you know how to create bad art too, right?

Carol: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Antrese Wood: So you can do both and you can show them both. When we're actively moving ourselves into a new way of thinking that we haven't thought before, then we start with baby steps. We pick one thing. What do I want to do? What do I need to feel in order to produce that?

Carol: Okay, this is very helpful. This is very galvanizing in a way to get me to actually go do the ugly art that I need to do on [inaudible].

Antrese Wood: Yeah, yeah. I know that we all create ugly art.

Carol: You have to, ugly art, whatever. Just get warmed up and get to where you want it to look.

Antrese Wood: Exactly, I love it.

Carol: Thank you.

Antrese Wood: All right, Carol.

Carol: So now I had found the anxiety. Thank you very much.

Antrese Wood: You're very welcome. When you get into that state, and this is for everybody, we will believe ourselves, our brains are going to offer us, I like to call it the horror movie, our brain is going to offer us the worst-case scenario. We are artists, people. We have such good imaginations. We are so good at conjuring up images. We can create the most realistic things happening in our brains. Our brain doesn't know the difference. It thinks it's really, really happening. We are so good at it.

When we do that, your brain thinks, “We're going to die. I need to save us all. It is my job to do whatever it takes, even if it means cleaning out the entire garage to prevent you from experiencing that thing that you think is so terrible.”

What we want to do is give our brains a different message. We wanted to say, "Hey, yes, I hear you. I understand the panic that you're feeling because you think we're going to die, but we're not.” That panic is a vibration in my chest. That panic is all this extra energy in my body. That panic is what happens, all the adrenaline coming because my brain thinks it's going to die. I can feel that adrenaline. I can let it pass. I know how to handle that. Deep breath, calm my nervous system down, pick another thought. I'm not dying right now. I'm teaching 12-year-olds how to paint.

That's what we're talking about. We have to put it into perspective. We have to say, “This is what my brain is conjuring up and this is what's actually happening.” I want to give you a couple of thoughts. In addition to the ones that I just gave to Carol and to Nancy, a couple of thoughts that might help you create self-confidence that you can try on.

I like to think of trying on thoughts as if I'm trying on a new outfit. It might fit, might work perfectly, it might not. I might have to adjust it a little bit. I might have to tweak it a little bit or I might just put it on and be like, “Yeah, no, that is totally not going to work for me.”

I'm going to give you some thoughts. Take what you want from them and discard whatever doesn't work. Thoughts that tend to bring confidence: I was made for this. This is what I was born to do. The worst thing that can happen is a feeling and I can do feelings.

My go-to all-time favorite is, “I have my own back always. I always have my own back.” If I don't know something, I learn the “how” by taking action. The only way I will ever know how I did a painting is to paint the painting. Then I will know how I did it. Then the last one I want to offer you is, “I do not compare myself, ever.” All right, Ekaterina, I'm coming to you.

Ekaterina: Hello. Well, in my artistic career, I was doing many things. In the first half, I was doing kind of safe things. I create my own style, quite commercial, but I like it anyway. I was fine with this. I work in the film business as well. But now I feel much more free than before. I'm experimenting with all sorts of things.

I'm taking myself on smaller projects and I'm doing things I have never done before. I put on a theater performance, which I thought I would die. I'm a very quiet and introverted person. But I did it. I work with porcelain in a factory and they get a German design price. I'm writing poetry. I'm doing all kinds of things. But I still don't feel visible.

Antrese Wood: Why don’t you feel visible?

Ekaterina: I'm painting new things and I am writing poetry. All I can do is post on Instagram where I have 20 friends who don't even pay much attention to it. They just roll it through as much as I can imagine.

Antrese Wood: Why are those 20 people what determines whether or not you're visible for you?

Ekaterina: I don't know. Maybe it means so much to me, what I'm doing, not being arrogant or anything, I just put so much of my emotions and everything, and all I get is just a few likes. It's not about media, maybe I have to go to galleries or to poetry evenings, maybe I have. But in a way, it stops me from doing things. I do it much less.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. This is perfect. I love that you brought this to us. This is perfect because it does have a lot to do with confidence. The belief is that the value of what you do is determined by the number of likes that you get, how visible you are, and how many people see it. The skill gap or the thing that you're wanting is you want what you want, is more people to see your art.

Ekaterina: Yes.

Antrese Wood: Okay, so 20 people are already looking at your art. You're telling yourself that that's not enough. I'm going to do this really, really fast. Normally I would give you a lot more time to talk and I would like to give you a lot more time to tell me all of the “yeah, but” like, “Yeah, but you don't understand because XYZ. Yeah, but this is the thing.”

I know you have a million of those. I'll give you one thing, just one thing to play with, and this is for everybody. Can you offer yourself the belief that for Ekaterina you said, if I heard it right, you said there are 20 people following you or 20 people who are experiencing your art right now.

Everybody in this room on the Zoom call has a different number of people who are looking at your art. I want to offer you this. I already have X number of people who are looking at my art, even if it's only one, and there are more coming. How do I know there are more coming?

I know there are more coming because I will not stop. I will keep making my art. I will keep putting it out there. I will keep looking for the people, my people who like my art. We are all so special and so amazing, but we're not unicorns. We are, but we're not. What I mean by that is, believe it or not, there are more people like you out there and they're looking for you and your job is to find them.

Ekaterina: How to find them?

Antrese Wood: By keep putting your work out there. By keep making your art. You focus on the art that you want to make. You keep doing it and you keep putting it out and then you're going to have 21 people, then you're going to have 22 people. Then five of those people are going to say, "Hey, have you seen this?" They're going to keep coming and coming and coming. Do you know how many people listened to the podcast when I first made it? Seven.

Ekaterina: Wow.

Antrese Wood: Seven people, and I'm willing to bet that three of them were family members and four of them was me refreshing the screen. I kept doing it. I stopped paying attention to the numbers. I did it really poorly. I did it really badly and I kept doing it. I learned every single time and I believed hard that I would find my people if I kept putting it out there.

You guys are all here. That's what I have for you today. Play with some of the thoughts that I offered you. Notice all of the "yeah, buts” that are running through your head, not just you, Ekaterina. We all have our "yeah buts”.

Your "yeah buts,” I want you to pay attention to those, write them down. That is what your brain is telling you is in your way. That is basically your to-do list. Solve for those problems. That's what your brain is telling you is in the way. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about—and I think this is so perfect—tomorrow we're going to talk about trust. We're going to talk about trusting yourself and trusting your voice. It's a big one.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Savvy Painter Podcast on creative confidence. Listening is one thing, but if you want to integrate everything that you just heard and make confidence your habit, you'll need to put it into practice, which is exactly what we do in Growth Studio.

If you are ready to join, just go to savvypainter.com/join. In fact, Beverly joined Growth Studio after the live event that you've just listened to, and here's what she has to say about joining Growth Studio.

Beverly: I'm Beverly and I live in North Carolina on the coast. I have my studio which is an official studio where I can come and work now, which is super exciting for me. I paint mostly with acrylics and a lot of mixed media though. I use all kinds of things like pastels and oils.

I would paint for more emotional relaxation for therapy, therapeutic. I wasn't really thinking about being a painter for a business, but I used to listen to podcasts and it just felt like you were talking to me. I know you hear that. It really, really helped me a lot just emotionally, and mentally with my art and my life.

Then in December, you had like a free month of Growth Studio. I took advantage of that. Then now I'm all in. I'm here and I'm working all the time making art and exercising, and it all went hand in hand with the timing and all of that together. It's all really been a part of you, Growth Studio, everything has been a part of my life change, my new life. So thank you for that.

Antrese Wood: If you're ready to change your art practice for the better and join an amazing group of artists, just go to savvypainter.com/join.

Hey, if you want to take what you are learning here on the Savvy Painter Podcast even further, join us in Growth Studio. This is where you will take what you've learned here on the podcast and apply it, practice it, and take these concepts from just good ideas that maybe you'll do someday to habits that become part of your practice. Growth Studio is a unique community of artists. We meet multiple times a week for live coaching, critiques, and demos. Just go to savvypainter.com/join.