I was always a very artistic, creative child, and I couldn’t be kept away from drawing, sculpting, sewing... really any creative activity with my hands. I loved the way I could custom-make anything I was able to imagine. I was brought up with access to private art classes, an after-school art program, and was always voted “most artistic” in class. I won a 2nd place award for a hearing safety poster I designed from my state. My high school art teacher nurtured my technical skills and helped me to find my footing as an illustrative artist. She even pushed me to apply to the same world class art college she graduated from, and when I didn’t apply, she became disappointed with me. Many years later, I sit with an unfinished degree in illustration from an art and design school. I don’t illustrate professionally or create merchandise anymore, I haven’t kept up with my Instagram account full of images of my art in almost two years now, and I don’t have any desire to “break into the industry.” It seems I haven’t reached my full potential.

I struggle with a void of creativity now. Months go by, and I create nothing. On the occasion I do get an idea, I enjoy dreaming up ideas, but once it comes to actually starting or finishing the idea, I find myself paralyzed. All I can hear in my head is the inadequacy of the idea, and its’ inferiority to other art. I strain myself trying to justify my place as an artist.

“Am I appropriating folk art if I received technical training and access to professional art resources?”
“Is this concept important enough to bring into the world?”
“Is the medium I’m working in even an impactful or interesting one?”

I never struggled to make a silly watercolor painting of a pretty girl in high school, or stream of consciousness drawings of how I was feeling paired with aesthetics I was interested in as a freshman in college. I can’t just let my art exist as it is.

In many of my college classes, students’ work created over the last week would go through criticism, or “crit,” and the professor and students in the class would look at other students’ work and explore how it could be improved. At first, I silently resisted criticisms, and thought wrong of my professors calling my use of aesthetics “kitsch,” or way of telling a story visually “obvious.” Over time, I learned to accept these statements, and used them as motivation to improve my craft. By sophomore year, I was spending upwards of ten hours on a single piece, juggling five classes with all different creative assignments. Professors and students had less and less to say during my crit time. While my work was better received, and my technical skills improved, it is also easier to create something that will be well-received when you are dedicating more time and energy into it. Maybe I truly had better skills, but looking back, I think it was a mix of longer work times and insecurity driving me to make something I felt couldn’t be improved - perfect.

I started to feel as if I was losing my creative identity. The “kitschy,” aesthetically focused art I made freshman year no longer appeared in crit, and was instead replaced by realistic, impersonal work. Some of this was due to the nature of the curriculum for sophomore students, but I felt that I was hiding myself towards the end of my time in school. I looked back on the work I made before this insecurity developed with scorn, as I felt it was too naked to attract the small but localized audience I had on social media.

Some years after I left college, I started illustrating again, finding my style and drive once more. I began creating merchandise to sell on Etsy, finding some success selling my handmade stickers to a small audience through Instagram. I accepted commissioned work and opportunities to build my portfolio, even if I wasn’t interested in the idea. I even fostered a working relationship with a small skincare brand as an illustrator through reaching out and creating a branded sticker sheet for free as a portfolio piece. It seemed like I was picking myself back up after losing my artistic identity, and I had the drive to “make something of my art.” I wanted to get into professional illustration, and make it work without my degree.

After some time, I lost interest in this dream. I realized I was spending a lot of my time creating things I wasn’t interested in making or trying to strike a balance between innovative and commercial-friendly in my pursuits. I think I was still seeking what I wanted in crit and thought that stylization was the lacking aspect back then.

Though it may seem that my issues revolve around crit, I believe my issues with being seen desirably are deeper than what I can produce and the aesthetics I channel. Like many other “artsy” kids, I was bullied throughout my school years, and I later grew into adult mental illness. I struggle with bipolar II, which causes me to face difficulty in sustaining a steady, consistent workflow. When I feel motivated in mania, I have a million ideas, some of which are too ambitious or abstract to translate into reality. When I am depressed, I am creatively immobilized, and cannot help but pick myself and all my previous creative endeavors apart. Mania feels like a break from the obsessive self-judgment I’ve placed on myself over the years, but outside of this time, I feel like any direction I walk in is a dead end.

All in all, I’ve graduated into an adult that struggles with the concept of how I am judged. I’ve migrated in the direction of privatizing my life, becoming increasingly pickier with who I share my secrets with, who I spend time with, or how I present myself outside of my inner circle of friends and loved ones. I think the motivations behind this are a little neurotic, but there’s some good reason to be found in my confidentiality. People truly can be mean-spirited behind your back, and at worst, can impact your safety or wellbeing through their accounts of your oversharing or the parasocial relationship they’ve developed from your public image. I really don’t understand how musicians are able to live in the public eye with their life and art on display.

Unfortunately for me and everyone else in the world that struggles with giving yourself a break from being perfect, you cannot control people’s perceptions of you – even your friends and loved ones’. You cannot share without being received. I have the option to either live in a bubble where no one sees what I create and I don’t have to account for how others feel upon viewing, or I can share and take the risk of my art being disliked.

I’ve been asking myself which option I want to choose in this dilemma, and the more I think about it, I realize that I can do both. Perhaps there is a time and place for the art that seems to flow out of me when I am reliving trauma, and keeping this to myself is a reasonable boundary to have. Alternately, I should be less afraid to share the beauty I create. Being inspired by the rustic scenery that surrounds me in my hometown, the collection of antiques that decorate my space, and the memories of items and aesthetics that brought my younger self joy.

And then, somewhere in the middle lies most art, combining the intimate with the visible - this is where I remain the most paralyzed. How do you create easy to define boundaries with art that is beautiful and meant to be seen and appreciated, but also bears a part of yourself that you can’t easily put into words?

I am slowly discovering my creative voice again, dipping my toes in between the private and the public. I made a zine the other day after some drunken spiraling that will probably never see the light of day, and I am also planning to make a decorative polymer clay incense holder for my new apartment. I hope to reach a place where I can make and share art that lies in between the intimate and the visible without intense criticism and overthinking. For now, I am adjusting to living with my partner, who sees all of who I am daily, and continuing to maintain the other relationships in my life with the vulnerability, trust, and respect they deserve. I don’t think Instagram, or any other social media for that matter, will be my go-to for sharing when I can barely bring myself to open the app outside of responding to the reels my friends send me. I can still show my art in other ways that make me feel excited to contribute, and ultimately, I don’t need the most eyes on what I’m doing. Even if everyone in the world loved my art, I think I would still choose only to share my work in ways that feel meaningful and enjoyable to me.

Maybe our full potential as artists is to create meaning for ourselves, rather than creating meaning for an audience. Since leaving my past creative attitudes behind, I’ve settled into a 9-5 that has brought me a lot of joy and meaning through creating a sense of community, as well as provided a sense of stability. I am finding that moving on from ideas that no longer serve me has given way to a greater sense of freedom in what I can create. I hope to branch out into crafting, such as crochet, jewelry-making, polymer-clay sculpting, and giving new life to wood antiques with creative paint jobs. I’d also really like to create interactive media, such as role-playing games for PC and dress-up games (like those old flash games you could play online in the 2000’s). I have a lot of great ideas, and I just need to believe in myself so I can reach my full creative potential.