Why Your Art Matters (Even When You Think It Doesn’t)

Hello, hello, my friends, welcome to another episode of the Savvy Painter Podcast. My name is Antrese Wood, and I am the host of this podcast. If you are a longtime listener of the podcast, welcome back. I'm so happy to have you here. If you are new to the podcast, welcome. The Savvy Painter Podcast is the place for artists who want practical, tactical tips to create a meaningful art practice that is fulfilling and supports you.

Not too long ago, I sent an email to everybody who's on my list. If you're on my list, you probably got this email. I offered some sessions with me to do some deep, deep work. I recently completed a very intensive program on coaching the unconscious mind and using hypnosis in order to make change in our art practice and in our creativity. So I got to work with some of the most amazing artists who signed up for this. It was an incredible, powerful experience.

One of the things that I noticed as a theme going around regardless of what artists wanted to work on was this question of “Does it matter if I create my work? Is this really changing anything? Is this valuable? Should I continue to do this?” They knew inherently that the answer was “Yes, of course, I should continue to do this work. Yes, of course, my work matters,” logically, they knew that, but there's always this nagging doubt underneath a lot of the things that they initially brought to me.

Sometimes people were wanting to work on their thoughts and ideas about pricing and on talking about their work or on stopping the habit of overthinking or on creating a schedule that fit into their life and that they didn't feel so guilty about. Whatever it was underneath it, there was a sense or this little bit of a fear that their work didn't matter. That idea was impacting everything else.

The idea that their work didn't matter was creating that space where they would be overthinking or creating that space where when something else came up, they would pause on their work in order to tend to somebody else's needs or tend to something else that was going on that in reality wasn't that urgent or wasn't that important to them.

So I wanted to talk about that on today's podcast because there's a lot going on and we're all feeling it and don't even get me started on what's happening in the world right now. But I wanted to address this issue of this underlying fear, even if it's just a whisper that somehow what you are creating isn't important and doesn't matter. Let's talk about this.

I feel like this is something that we constantly need to remind ourselves of. That is that it matters that you create your work. What you are doing, what you are creating matters and it is important. It's easy to forget so I'm here to remind you of that. I'm here to ignite those fires a little bit that I know are deep inside of you.

Your work matters a lot. It matters to you and it matters to other people. I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to remind you why because it's easy to get distracted, it's easy to forget, and it's easy to believe all the noise that you hear around you. Sometimes we just get confused. We get confused because we think that we're not getting any attention for our art. We think that because we're not selling our art that that somehow means that it doesn't matter that it's not important.

Let's clear all that up, shall we? I mean, the truth is that you see the world differently than most people do. That is the most beautiful thing. We're bombarded with all of these messages about how we should perceive things and what the world is. I know on some level there is a part of you that loves the fact that you see things differently.

There's this other part that's been conditioned to believe that you have to be like everybody else, that you have to conform, that you have to change who you are in order to belong. Wanting to belong is such a primal thing. We are social creatures and on some level, we need other people in order to survive. Belonging that need to belong is something that is ingrained in us.

It is important, that need to belong. But this idea that we should become something different in order to belong is false. It reminds me of high school, it reminds me of junior high. I remember listening to Brene Brown talk about this. She had asked, and I might be getting the details on this wrong, I think she was asking middle school kids what the difference between belonging and fitting in is, and in a nutshell, belonging meant feeling comfortable with who you are, being comfortable showing who you are, and having that sense of belonging to yourself.

Fitting in meant changing yourself to become what other people expected of you. I might be butchering that, but the essence of it is there. One is changing who you are in order to conform and pretending to be something that you're not while belonging is loving who you are and being accepted for who you are.

I think this has a lot to do with this idea that our art doesn't matter and us seeing things differently than the rest of the world. What I noticed with the artists that I work with and what I was reminded of when I did those sessions with, gosh, there were like 25 people who signed up for it and it was so much fun, but what it reminded me of was that the very thing that makes you and your art so special is oftentimes the thing that you think that you should hide or you think isn't good enough or isn't perfect enough or somehow doesn't conform.

It's not like what everybody else does. Therefore, you need to change the way that you are creating it. This leads to the dissatisfaction in your work and in your art practice. Because if you're trying to be something that you're not, it just feels like a lie. When you have that belief that what you are creating, somehow in some way, shape, or form isn't “good enough” or isn't the correct way to do it or it's questionable in any way, shape, or form, it causes a lot of self-doubt.

It causes people often to create work that doesn't light them up. That's just not sustainable. The most beautiful thing I think about being an artist is that we see things differently. We see beauty where a lot of other people wouldn't even notice it. We've trained ourselves to notice the breathtaking beauty in the most mundane moments. We give a voice to ideas and to feelings that have no language. We allow people to safely feel and connect and feel seen.

But in order to do that, we must feel safe ourselves. We process differently. We process visually, audio, the way that we hear things, the way that we move, all of this, we process a little bit differently than most people do. That's the very thing that is the most beautiful about being an artist. That is the very thing that must be protected, I think, at all costs.

You know this, that creating art is a solo experience. When you are making your art, you are usually by yourself in your studio or out in the field, or even if you are creating work in a setting with other people, the creation happens in your mind. What happens on your canvas starts in your mind with your ideas and the way that you see things.

This is a gift. This gift of experiencing connection and emotions in solitude is an enormous gift and most people don't have it. That's what's so special about you and about your art. Most people are completely disconnected from their emotions. They're completely disconnected from the diversity of the emotions that they have and all of the nuances of them.

If you ask somebody who's not an artist, or you ask somebody who is not doing this type of work how they're feeling, a lot of them really struggle to describe what it is. They don't have language for it, or if they do have language, it's extremely limited. Most people only have three words to describe how they're feeling. They say that they're happy, sad, or pissed off.

Seeing a painting allows those people to engage with themselves in ways that they can't even label. This is so important. It is vital I think to our advancement as humans, our evolution as a species. I really believe that. If you're listening, I hope you do too, or at least you're opening yourselves up to the possibility that what you do has that much of an impact.

Because listen, the thing that you think is so weird is the thing that is lacking in most people. That is the exact thing that is causing people to feel disassociated from themselves and from other people, this ability to sense an inner world and to experience awe and beauty and to understand that where we live and what we see and what is around us has an impact on all of us and art is an entryway, it is a portal into that.

You've experienced this. You experience this when you walk into a gallery and you see a piece of art that just takes your breath away or you go to a museum and you are just lost in a painting and you are pulled into it from across the room, you are pulled into this painting, and it's such an awe-inspiring experience.

As artists, we are more attuned to that. We see it, we cultivate it. I've talked about this before on the podcast. I think I did an entire episode on us being awe-hunters. We instinctively do this, and we take it for granted in some ways when we think that our art isn't important.

We are here to remind people what it is to be human and the beauty and the joy and everything that comes from that. Also, the other sides of it, the sorrows, the melancholy, even the horrors of this world, sometimes we need to point that out. Whatever type of work that you create, you are showing other people what it is like to be human and what it is like to connect with the world around them on a different level than “What does this do for me and what can I get out of this resource?”

Whether you're aware of it or not, you are influencing and inspiring people with your art. You're making them think, you're making them stop, slow down, and notice. Unfortunately, I'm sorry, you don't always get to know the impact of that, but you are making that impact, I promise you.

With all of the interviews that I've done with artists and with all of the artists that I've spoken to, there's always a person, a piece of art, an experience that they had that showed them that there was a possibility that they could create art. Odds are good that the person that inspired them has absolutely no idea.

I remember when I was a little kid, really little, and I don't know how my mom managed to do this, but she would take me into Los Angeles and we would go see a play or a ballet or an opera or something that was happening at the civic center. Still to this day, I don't know, I need to ask her that. I don't know how she managed to pull that off because we were growing up, things were very, very tough.

Somehow she managed to pull together just enough for us to occasionally go see these ballets or see these plays. I remember vividly sitting there watching these performers and thinking how amazing and how beautiful they are. When I think about that now, I know that those artists sacrificed so much to be there and they were probably struggling too.

They had no idea that there was a little girl in the audience that was just so absolutely fascinated by what they did that she would go on to dedicate her life to creating art and to supporting other artists. I mean, that's really powerful when you think about it. This is vital.

By creating your art, you are inspiring other people to create theirs in some way, shape, or form. People are noticing what you're doing and wondering, "Can I do that too? Could I create something also?" And that's so amazing and so beautiful that this is a connection, this is an impact that we have in this world as artists is that we inspire other people to bring beautiful things into the world in whatever way, shape, or form that is.

I wanted to start with that with the impact that you are having on the bigger picture because it gets lost so often. We're there in our little studios or painting outside, wherever it is in our kitchen, in our studios, wherever it is, that little corner of your house that you have dedicated to your art supplies or that spare bedroom or that studio space that you finally got to rent.

It's so easy to forget that we're not alone in this. I just felt like it was really important to remind you of that, okay? The other piece of it is obviously why it matters to you. So when we're thinking about this idea that your art matters, it matters to other people and it matters to you.

Again, I get it, sometimes it's easy to forget. Sometimes when you are around people who don't get it or when you fall into that trance of believing that because nobody responded to the piece on Instagram or because nobody bought it at that show you just had that it doesn't matter or that it's not relevant.

Let's just play with that little devil that's in your head, of “This doesn't matter or my work doesn't matter.” Let's just imagine for a second what it would be like if that thought didn't even exist. Because who would you be without this idea that it doesn't matter? That what you see and what you believe doesn't matter? What if instead, you imagined that the very idea that your art doesn't matter or isn't important didn't exist at all?

I'm going to ask a lot of you here. I just want you to imagine that that thought, that sentence, that idea was just poof, gone, out of the universe and impossible to conceive of, much less get back. Who would you be without that? To me, that's like absolute freedom. I don't know about you.

But just allow yourself to play with this idea because your imagination is so powerful. You don't have to go to opposite thoughts or ideas. It's just that those ideas don't exist anymore. Now some people might go to the idea that their art is important. Some people might go to the idea that their art is just fun and they enjoy making it.

Someone else might adopt the idea that their art is interesting to people, that's why they do it. Someone else might just enjoy messing with people's minds causing a little disruption with their art. Some people might take on the idea that, well, it just makes them happy and that's enough.

Now, I don't know if you'd replace that old tired idea that your art doesn't matter with any of these ideas or if you'd come up with something entirely different. But when you throw out that idea, like you would throw out a disgusting rotten piece of fruit that rolled behind the refrigerator and didn't dust it off and put it back in the refrigerator as if it could ever be useful, you make room for something else. You make room for something better.

Yes, I am telling you that that idea is like a disgusting piece of rotten fruit. When you make room for something else, something better to come in, there's an opening when you let go of the idea that your art somehow doesn't matter. To me, that is freedom because you get to decide what you let in there. You get to create something different, a new way of seeing yourself and your art.

Just imagine what that would be like to never have that thought again, to never be bothered by it, to never spend a single moment thinking about it. I mean, really think about that. What will you do with all that time, all that energy that you used to direct towards wondering if your art matters?

Again, I don't know what you might fill that space with, but just imagine if you did fill it with the idea that your art is fun and you enjoy making it and that was your go-to thought that sat in the back of your mind and filled the front of your mind while you were making your art.

Or what if you adopted the idea that your art is just so interesting to people and that what you create allows people to think and allows people to enter a world, an idea that they may never have thought of before, that you might remind them with a color, with a shape of a memory that they had forgotten about that inspires them to do something amazing and creative that day, or that it just simply uplifts them and starts off their day in a way that they didn't have access to before.

Or maybe you would rather fill that space with something that will disrupt people's day a little bit and get them thinking and cause them to question some of their habit thoughts with your art and what might the ripple effects of that be, what might that create.

Or what might happen if instead of worrying about all those tired ideas that used to fill your brain, what if instead, the only idea that entered your mind was “Making my art is fun and I enjoy this,” how would that change things? What would you create if every time you walked into your studio, you looked around and thought, “This is fun, this is going to be fun,” how would that change your process? How would that change how you look at your work?

It's fun to think about, isn't it? So I just wanted to plant these seeds and see what might grow and allow you to take these ideas and make them your own and just play with this idea that there are some thoughts in your mind that are ready to be released and let go of.

One of the greatest realizations that I've ever had about my own art is that my art is a love letter to myself. That when I create my art from a place of love, everything changes.

When I create my art from a place of love for the art itself, from a love for the craft of painting, from the deliciousness of making a brushstroke and watching that color land and playing with how different shapes look next to each other, and different ideas can come across on a canvas, when I allow myself to fall deeply in love with that and with the history of all art and with all the paintings that I've ever seen, all the galleries that I've been into, all of the paintings that I've seen in museums, in other people's homes, in books on the internet, every single one of those is part of this love, is part of this craft, it's part of the visual identity that I have created for myself.

When I also allow myself to fall in love with the artist who creates it, to fall in love with the hand that paints the painting that I'm working on now, and I allow myself to completely enjoy the fact that I have chosen this as my life and that I get to go into my studio and go walk up to my easel and make these beautiful brushstrokes and these beautiful moments that connect me to what it is to be a human, that is just such a beautiful thing.

That matters so much to me because it matters that I allow myself to be and to become the person that I want to be, all of the work that goes into that, all of the paintings that I love, and all of the paintings that maybe I just don't understand yet, and I allow myself to fall deeply in love with the person who created that, it changes everything.

That matters to me. Why that matters to me is because it allows me to explore and play and have fun and it is a part of my existence that gives me fulfillment and it is healing for me. It allows me to express myself in ways that aren't possible in any other form, that I cannot express in words, that I cannot express in movement, that I can only express with paint, and that is so healing and so fulfilling.

When I give that gift to myself, I energize myself, and I rejuvenate myself, and I recharge my batteries. When I go out into the community, when I go out into the public, I still see things differently and so I respond differently because I'm coming from this completely different energy and that energy is contagious.

So not only is it the actual work that I'm creating, it is the fact that I'm creating that work and how it's changing me and the ripple effects and the domino effects of that when I go out into the world.

When I record this podcast and when I talk to you and how it influences other artists, there is always a ripple effect and I am so grateful to be able to create that. For me, the only way to create that is from a place of love; love of the art and love for the artist who makes it. In my opinion, love always wins. All right, that's what I have to say about that. That's what I have for you this week. Go paint. Have a beautiful afternoon. Talk soon.

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.