your self-esteem and your art

[icreate]

I am writing a series of articles on the emotional aspects of art. I would love to hear as many comments as possible about how your self-esteem is related to your art.

Do you find you have hi self-esteem? As you progress in your art does your self-esteem go up or down? How about when you start a piece of art, do you doubt your abilities? Over the years of creating have you gained more self esteem or feel it is harder to have hi self-esteem?

My husband is also an artist. We are always pushing past what we have done and challenging ourselves, and find that it is sometimes difficult to believe in our abilities, but we do! How about you?

How about when others comment on your work, does it effect you? Andrew Wyeth once spoke about the effect his wife’s opinions had on his work. Once he hid a painting behind the refrigerator, for months, because of a comment she made.

Then there is the aspect of "artwork is never finished only abandoned". So we are always striving for perfection.

Do you feel creative people have more self-esteem issues than non-creative people?

Thanks for all of your input. Please indicate if I can use your name and comments in my articles

[davphil]

Probably too late for your article, but I find most artists are in fact somewhat unsure of their creations at first. It is, if you will like riding a bicycle for the first time and it just happening to be in a coliseum. As one goes along, it gets easier. I think the validation of having people comment and then god forbid, a sale! Well these help considerably in the attitude of an artist. I would like to have known how many famous artists viewed this. Most lived on the edge of poverty yet held status of some sort in society, albeit, sometims too late in their life.

[rjustin]

look at the book "Art and Fear"

rjustin

[sculptor]

I am writing a series of articles on the emotional aspects of art. I would love to hear as many comments as possible about how your self-esteem is related to your art.

Do you find you have hi self-esteem? As you progress in your art does your self-esteem go up or down? How about when you start a piece of art, do you doubt your abilities? Over the years of creating have you gained more self esteem or feel it is harder to have hi self-esteem?

..... difficult to believe in our abilities, but we do! How about you?

How about when others comment on your work, does it effect you? ......
Do you feel creative people have more self-esteem issues than non-creative people?
.... Please indicate if I can use your name and comments in my articles

Once upon a time, and a long time ago it was---------I wandered into the studio of one of my figurative mentors, Rodger Akers, and headed for the kitchen and started setting up the coffee pot, when I heard an ungodly scream and a shocking series of invective-and crashing chairs and tools and a great banging about----"Jesus f..king Che..rist...what the h..l am I doing...what the f...is wrong with me god...mnit......".and on and, I realized, somewhat terrified that i was in a corner with no escape---fortunately----he calmed down, and we had coffee-----Roger was/is well grounded in his skills, and has an excellent eye------if you ain't a little insecure in your creations, you may stagnate and stop trying to get better----so a little is helpfull

It takes high self esteem to start an artwork--especially when you've revered the masters of times gone by as have I---To even think that you could fill their shoes and go farther....---but in the process----I work toward what feels right(hi esteem) and work against what feels wrong(low esteem)----sometimes, the figurative is dead accurate, and dead aesthetically---and I pace and sometimes scream and curse as Rodger did----and can easilly fall into a self doubt funk----sometimes in the funk, I do more harm than good to the evolving clay------then I fall back on Rodin's trick of making the silhouettes accurate, and force my way through the uncomfortable views into those which feel right.
------when I feel it's right-----self esteem ceases to even enter the picture

Once when getting up and groaning a bit after working on hands an knees, and hearing my co-worker groaning too, I asked my co-worker John Zarek----"hey John, remember when getting up was easy?" He replied---"I remember when I didn't even think about it" juxtapose this with hi self esteem-------When you have it, you don't even think about it------in the groove------no self doubt----just the work and the vision blending through skill and talent---
and your skill evolves through it's useage.

but

everyone needs an occasional "pat on the back"

It don't hurt at all when folks are ebulient in their praise of my work...........
...
unless I suspect condescending crap------so it's perhaps a bit in the eye of the beholder

publish what you will(change the guys names) and post your progress and articles------( a psych. major in a room full of artists?)

[sculptor]

caveat
I had an uncle named Nick---who's self esteem was tied to his work-------he once told me...."A mans only purpose on this earth is to work"........Nick died within 2 weeks of retireing---
---Nick used to have an owner-operator coal mine---used a mule to pull the coal cart in the mine----when I was 2-3 years old, Nick would let me go along into the mine if I stayed on the mules back the entire time----I could even sleep on that mule without falling off.
25 years later, I stopped to visit with Nick..the now 35 year old mule had been "put out to pasture" long ago--as he munched the grasses, his steps were the slow and deliberate ones of age..
--Nick said the old mule still wanted to go back to work--to illustrate his words, he went into the tack shed and came out with the mule's harness and holding it aloft, gave it a shake---the old mule pricked up his ears, and came prancing across the pasture as though he was 20 years younger----he seemed terribly disapointed when we just talked to him and scratched his head----he really wanted to feel usefull again----he died that autumn.

moral: beware of deriving "self esteem" from things you do.

[jwebb]

I would like to be as good a man as any tomcat is a tomcat. The cat of course doesn't have to think about it. He just is. For a human, thinking it all through seems to be required. Maybe it is our essence to think about ourselves and what we "should" do and can do and desire to do. We must - and can to some extent - define ourselves and what we're going to spend our time on while we're here. From that ability follows the responsibility to do so. To be "most" human, I want to use my abilities, senses, brain, heart, eye, conscience, and whatever I've learned from experience, to the most humanly significant ends I can imagine: Music, Art, Love, not necessarily in that order. To the extent I get to do that I feel good about myself. To the extent I can't pull that off, I don't.