We measure ourselves by many things but mostly by others… how talented or successful others are and how others might see us. Might you might be surprised to find that your ultimate yardstick is literally in your own hands.
Join me today for a chat about how we judge ourselves, compare others to ourselves, what we can do to avoid the missteps these views can cause, and to discover the yardstick that can not only improve your artwork but your artistic process and artistic life.
–
Leave a COMMENT: https://thesagearts.com/episodes/
–
CONTACT SAGE
Email: https://thesagearts.com/contact/
And join Sage on social media:
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thesageartspodcast/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheSageArtsPodcast
–
GET WEEKLY PODCAST NOTICES & BONUS MATERIAL:
Newsletter goes out every Sunday after an new episode goes up!
https://sagebrayvaron.com/the-sage-arts-podcast/
–
SUPPORT THIS PODCAST
· Buy polymer art books and magazines
–
CREDITS:
Cover design by Sage; Illustration by Olga Kostenko
Music by Playsound
Transcript:
–AI transcribed, unedited. Please excuse the copious errors.–
So I can admire them. I can love them, but I don’t have to want to make them. When you’re looking at other people’s artwork, even in your own medium, you don’t need to do their work. You can love it, and you can. Enjoy it, but you don’t have to try to do it. Hello all my wonderful unique creatives out there. Thank you for joining me on the Sage Arts podcast. This is sage. And yeah, it’s just me again today. That’s been kind of the role for the last month and a half. I guess I had Bretton here, but yeah, it’s just things are still wacky. I think I mentioned it last time, it’s getting better or was getting better until Brett broke his toe. But broke his toe. He was actually kind of. Sleepwalking. And he ran into the bed. I I. Many of us do this. But he just did all the way. Broke his pinky toe in two places. And so I’ve been. Pulling double duty. With the dogs in the house and everything else cause he just he can’t do a lot of things that require balance and two hands at the same. Time so it’s. Yeah. Yeah, it’s always something. It’s always something. So in. Any case until things settle and I know that I’m going to have time to get some guests in here and give them the quality time that we need to. It’s just going to have to most of you, me, I’ll probably pull Bretton here again at some point. But in any case today come in and join me if you would. I couldn’t get the dogs even to come in. Today the lounge is open. Come have a seat. Bring a coffee or tea, wine or whiskey out whatever you need, and come have a seat with me and and join me for this little conversation. We’re going to have. And really, how you compare yourself to others or what you use to measure your worth and success as an artist? So I was going to call this and maybe I end up doing this. I don’t know, cuz I haven’t named it yet, but singing something like being your own yardstick, yardstick just is a way. Of saying how you measure it, where you are and what you are doing, you’re trying to accomplish. So the yardstick in art often comes down to looking at what other people are doing and comparing ourselves and saying where do we land in terms of what we think. We should be doing or should be able to do or want to do, and that often results in us measuring ourselves in terms of other people and what they do and their talents and their what they’re producing. But you know and you know what? I’m going to say you. Shouldn’t be using other people as your. Yardstick for your art. So that’s not new, but I want to talk about what that means. And I want to talk about why we do it. So you understand. Kind of fighting against you if you wanted to not do it, but it is actually a very normal and natural thing that we do as human beings. So we’ll talk about that. We’ll talk about the role of comparing ourselves to other people, what it actually should be doing for us, or how we actually should be using that and then how to create a PR stick that works for you that. Keeps you motivated. Keeps the joy in your work that allows you to progress in a way that is reasonable for you and just makes you happy in the whole process of creating art and being an artist and living a creative life. OK, so that previous what 3 minutes was actually recorded a week ago and had stopped cause my throat was sore and I didn’t know why and. I thought, OK, I’ll. Just finish recording the next day and I end up getting sick, so I hope I’m on the tail end of being sick, but I’m down to the wire. I got to get this recorded. For you, so hopefully I can keep my energy up. Hopefully I don’t sound too funny or start mumbling out of my tired sick. The sore throat is still sore unfortunately. But I’m going. To get this done, I I’m I’m very determined to get these things done, I feel like I’ve been throwing so many hurdles lately and trying to accomplish the certain things. The podcast being one of them, because it’s just it’s a lot of work. You know, I absolutely love doing it, so it’s not like I’m complaining at all, but it does take time. And makes it sometimes tricky when life just wants to, you know. Test my resolve. So anyways, here we are. We’re going to talk about comparing ourselves and like I said, you understand that the idea of comparing yourself to someone else is probably not the best way to kind of live. It’s not a very satisfying way to live because there’s always going to be someone who is going to do better than us. And because of that. We will always not be the best, the greatest whatever. Now there is a positive aspect to that in that we have something to strive for. But it can also be very frustrating because we see where our talents and our mediums and our form can take us, but we can’t seem to reach it. So there has to be some kind of, I don’t know. I don’t say resignation, but understanding that when you’re looking at other people’s work, when you’re looking at the skill sets. And the style and everything else that you see in other people’s work that you admire. That that’s not you. You are not ever going to be them. And that’s the number one thing to remember. You aren’t them. You shouldn’t be them. If you try to be them, it will never be as good as what you see. It doesn’t matter even if they’re mediocre artists. You’re trying to be like them. You will not be like them. You could be. You know better than them in certain ways you could be less than them in other ways. What you need to be is you need to be the best artist, creative, artisan, whatever it is that you are after that you can be for yourself. So if I want to make this really short podcast and say stop looking at other people’s stuff and think I wanted to do that. Or I want to be. Like them or whatever and just go do your own thing. OK. Podcast done. My throat would love that, but we know it’s not easy to just say I’m not going to compare myself to other people and I want to let you know that it’s OK that that happens. It happens to all of us. We all compare ourselves in some way to other people, even if we’re. The top of our game, we’re the best at what we do and and so many ways, there’s always going to be somebody else that sells better than we do that reaches audiences that we don’t reach, that gets accolades that we don’t. And although I encourage everybody to strive for the next good, best, wonderful thing and listen to the last few podcasts that I put out about what it is you should be striving for, because just as someone else is getting those accolades or reaching those audiences doesn’t actually mean you should, which you know is dovetails into what we’re talking about today. The fact is, is other peoples’s lives their work what they do. Is hopefully good for them, but it doesn’t mean that that’s going to be good for you and you should develop what it is that you need very uniquely for yourself, for your circumstances, what you want, the type of artwork that you do, the type of creativity that you have and what it is you want to get out of it. So that’s what we’ll focus on. Let’s first tackle the feelings. Of failure that we have in not being able to just set aside those self comparisons. It’s unfortunately something that’s built into us. It’s in our genes, it’s in our society. We compare because it’s actually a survival mechanism for us to understand where we are. Where we stand in these social hierarchy. Be in the line to get resources, that kind of thing. So when back in the I don’t know, came on days even we had to understand where we stood and part of that was seeing how well others were doing and how we were doing comparison to them. Because if we weren’t doing as well we might be left behind. We might not be seen as a valuable part of the Community because if we weren’t able to bring in food or whatever other resources. We needed. Then we could be left behind if we weren’t valued. So understand that comparing ourselves to others is completely natural and normal, and we’re going to do it regardless of what anyone tells you, no matter what I say or anything else that comes along that’s supposed to help you with this, you’re very likely going to do it. It’s completely natural. Now, whether you do it. And can just set it aside. Or whether it rules? What you do in the studio is those are two different things. So. I can go and see what other people are doing. Like I’m doing this colored pencil stuff right now, which there’s, oh, my gosh, the talent that’s out there with colored pencils is just absolutely amazing and starting a lot of it is photorealism or hyper realism, and it’s really incredible. That’s not really what I want to do. But I really admire what other people do. I want to know that I have the. Kind of control over the medium that these people have. And so I do kind of compare myself. Well, my, my little efforts right now to what other people are doing. I mean and when I can see myself approaching it in any fashion, it is encouraging. I do feel like what I am able to accomplish at this point is actually pretty decent and it’s better than two weeks ago when I started, you know that kind of thing. So our comparisons that we do make can be. Useful in terms of judging where we are in our. Work, but those comparisons shouldn’t be there with you in the studio when you’re creating, you know, so you’re not looking at your stuff and what you’re doing going, gosh, is, is that kind of like those other people’s work or is this kind of like this, these amazing artists that I’ve seen? Or am I approaching their level of talent at all? Do I see myself being? Able to at some. Point now I do have to say there were times when I’ve been working on this. Because color pencil. Is the worst. I told you it is the worst when it comes to feeling good about your art as you’re making it, it looks like crap. Your first shoe layers. You look like some scribbly child. Kindergarten and just putting random colors all over the place and you’re like, I know this goes here and I know this goes. Here’s what it looks like. You know, and it comes out later. I mean, you work on, you work on your layer layer and then then the image kind of comes out. And it’s unlike polymer clay, which is like whatever you’re making that whatever is in front of you, that’s what it’s gonna be. That’s it. You know? So if that doesn’t look great, you gotta fix what’s in front of you. So it’s a little bit of a different mindset for me, but. I do have moments where I’m like, OK, I apparently I suck. I really can’t do this. And all these other people are out there doing it. And you know what? I tell myself every time. I’m like, you know what, if there’s other people out there that can do it, I can do it. I’ve got to trust the process. I’ve got to trust that if I put the time in. I’m going to get to the point that I will have that kind of control over my medium. It’s just it’s just time and practice artist practice like anything else, like working out or, you know, baking or anything. It takes. It just takes practice to get to a point where you have the control over whatever it is you’re working with, your medium. In the case of this artist. Right that you can do whatever it is that you are wanting to do with it without having to think about the actual process of control. The idea that you know your medium so well that you can just tell your fingers to make the things and you make it how you want to make it cause you don’t have to think much about the material. Maybe just step back on that a little bit. You’re always thinking about your material, especially if it’s a material that can be manipulated in many, many ways. Polymer clay is the most the craziest material as far as the different ways you can manipulate it, and you may always be thinking I was. Just thinking, how can I push it? How can I do something different so there’s definitely always more to be learned and more skills to be gained. I think if you didn’t have that, if there weren’t things to reach for, you know being better at this or learning a new form or learning whatever, even if you understand your materials that you wouldn’t feel very driven. With the artwork in any case, I think I am diverging from the subject matter a little bit. But judging your skill level compared to what can be done versus to a specific person maybe is perfectly normal, natural and actually kind of necessary to give yourself an idea of your progress, to be able to see where you were to where you think you want to be at some point. Seeing you move along that you know that scale that you’ve set out for yourself, and that’s your yardstick, and then we’re going to talk about you putting up those yardsticks in particular towards the end here, but. We as artists necessarily have to think about other people for many, many reasons beyond just we want to be really good at what we do. So as artists, we really we’re judged or feel we’re going to be judged compared to other people, not just that we do that to ourselves. But that it is going to be done. To us as an artist, you might enter contests and then you’re absolutely judged. Compared to other people. And so we know that’s going to happen and we look at what other people are doing and think we’re going to enter this contest. Are we as good as these other people? Do we have a chance at beating these other people? And so there is naturally comparison there. Same thing as getting into juried. Joes, your body of work will be judged against the other people that are also applying so naturally. Really. You look at who’s been accepted in the past and whether your work is up to par, you know whether you think it’s going to be worth trying to apply for that show. And I’m going to tell you right now if you want to go to that show, if you want to be a part of that show, just apply for it. If you can afford to. Sometimes the fees are kind of high, but the very first show I ever applied to, I just.
I just went.
To the top of my list and thought well, I’m never gonna get into this one and I went ahead and set my stuff in because I had been working on polymer. I think it for four months at that time. And I thought now I want to be on a show and that this show is the top of my list right now. And I sent my stuff in and I did it as a practice for application and going through through that process. And then I got accepted. It was like, holy crap. I gotta make stuff. So you never know, you might as well just do it. You can just try it out, you know. And again, if the fees are kind of high, then of course you have to balance whether you’re gonna pay the application fees and your chance of getting in. But really, you should just do it if there’s. If there’s no good reason not to just apply for the show. But yeah, if you want to. If you have to pick and choose who you’re gonna apply to, what shows you’re gonna apply to, then you do want to look at what’s being shown at that show. You don’t want to be like the other people that the show you want to be of a caliber equivalent. Enough to what other people are bringing to the show, but you don’t necessarily want the same stuff. And the reason I got into it for show is because no one else had been doing polymer jewelry and submitting anything like that to the show, and that’s why. Got in. I mean I was doing pretty good too. It was absolute rubbish and they let me in. But anyways, so OK. And then magazines, if you submit to magazines, your submissions and the artwork and what you write of course will be compared to other options that the editors have to put in the magazine. And then if you apply for classes, say, they’re going to look at your skill levels and your experience and and what you can bring to their show or set of classes or workshops or whatnot in comparison to the other people that have also apply. Right. We have a lot of areas for which we feel we will be compared to other people. So on top of having this ingrained sense that we have to look and see what other people are doing, so we know where we are in our social standing and our ability to be successful in our lives. We also have all of these other things that we. Tend to take part of as active artists, especially working artists, and we will find ourselves being compared to other people anyway, so we’ve got both of those things working against us as far as trying not to have it be a domineering thought while you’re in the. Studio. So there’s a part of me that wants to say if we are going to be compared and we’re going to be mentally comparing ourselves to other people because that’s kind of how we’re built, maybe we shouldn’t fight it, but kind of plumbed the depths of that, that idea that maybe we should just let ourselves compare and let others compare us and let that just be part of. What we do? But of course there are a couple issues with this. Probably the first one that comes to mind for most people is the fact that when you’re looking at other people’s work and you’re not doing what they’re doing, you’re not getting to the level that you think that they’re at. It’s frustrating, it’s demotivating. It can just make you give up. It can make you give up on the material. It’s not art in general, and of course we don’t want that, so that’s bad enough. But I think there’s one other issue that I find to be a bigger and more troubling issue when it comes to comparing ourselves to others, the more that we compare ourselves to others. The less likely we will be expressing our own artistic thoughts and ideas and just our artistic voice is going to be muted if not silence, because we will be looking at other people’s work as what it is that we’re supposed to be after. In other words, we will be in danger of. Emulating other people’s work rather than actually creating our own work through our own voices. And I think when we’re working in the studio, we need to come from a place of our inner child’s curiosity. A place from where we are thinking about what is it that we want to see exist in the world that didn’t exist before? That’s part of ourselves that’s inside and has to come out. And if you’re too almost obsessed. If you’re too. Focused on other people’s work and what they’re doing and what they’re accomplishing and. And the gifts that they have and the talents that they have and the and the heights that they’ve reached. You’re going to have a very hard time finding your particular path because they may have reached the height of their mountain, but it’s not your mountain. You gotta find your own mountain or hill or you. Maybe you just meander through the valleys. You know, you’ve got to find your path in your journey, and it’s not going to end up. Like other people’s journeys, because if you actually did accomplish what other people were accomplishing, it could feel. Very shallow and very empty because you aren’t getting to actually express what you want to express. I mean, yeah, you might get the accolades for the high skill level that you have, and I feel like a lot of people out there on social media right now, you’re seeing these sometimes really amazing works by people who. I do a lot of the same things like. I’m definitely getting this with a color pencil thing. There’s photorealism everywhere, and I did photorealism when I was in college and the reason I stopped is because a lot of people thought what I did were. Photographs, which was. Kind of really annoying because you spent like 40 or 80 hours a week on these pieces. I would spend so much time. And then that people would just walk by. I think it was a photograph. And it’s like, OK, it’s impressive when they would find out that it was hand drawn but. That’s a moment of ohh that’s really cool. You have this skill. That’s awesome, but that’s not to me. That’s not art to me. That’s not expressing who we are and what it is that we can create that never existed before, you know. I mean, I could do a drawing of someone else’s photograph, but then I’m just doing a. During if someone else’s photograph, and if it looks like the photograph exactly, you know, I’m not saying anything for myself. I am just literally duplicating someone else’s.
Work.
Now if you take the photograph and you’re drawing your own photograph, that’s great. But if you do that, and this is exactly what I’m thinking with the color pencil stuff, because I do the photography stuff as well, I could take some of my IC, my intentional camera movement, and I’m not going to just draw what I photographed or what I filtered through Photoshop or whatnot. I’m going to take it and do. What the camera couldn’t do. So the camera gave me this image that I couldn’t have probably thought up on my own or drawn on my own, and then I’m going to take the materials and make it into something that the camera couldn’t do. So if you are making artwork like somebody else taking their tips. Or some of their design elements or their approach or construction or whatever it is that you find really amazing that you want to integrate into what you do. That’s fine. That’s great. But then do what you can do that they can’t do. Do the type of work, add the type of elements, filter it through your person, your vision, your experiences, and make it into something that’s going to specifically connect to you. So when someone sees it. They see you when they look at the artwork, they don’t see somebody else. And that’s not going to be accomplished if you are just changing the colors they use or changing the shapes that they use or making earrings instead of pendants or whatever it is you have got to find your voice what it is that you can say that is bringing you out. Into the world through the artwork, and hopefully that makes sense. Is that’s one of the hardest things to convey, whether it’s in classes or coaching or whatnot, in my experience, is for people to be able to identify what makes it them because it’s kind of. Like OK, in my mind it’s kind of like being in love. You don’t know what being in love can be until you’re there. Like you can fall in love with somebody and think this is great. This is wonderful. This feels great. And then 5-10 years down the road, out of that relationship and you end up in another relationship that is, like, amazing and so much better and like. This is what being in love really is. That was like just a faded version of what this could be. But until you’re there, you. Don’t know, so it’s kind of. Hard when you’re trying to find your voice in your artwork. You’ll know when you’re there, that it is your voice. You will know when that originality is coming through.
So.
But the great and wonderful thing is you don’t know how much your of your voice is existing in that until you get to like the next level. So you can continue to work on your version of what the medium and the forms and taking inspiration from other people and putting yourself into it. And at some point you realize this. Really is me. It doesn’t look like anybody else is. Or maybe it echoes other peoples’s and maybe, but maybe it has that edge or twist or mood or something that says that’s you. But I think at that point you’re just at the beginning of your voices potential and eventually if you keep working and you keep being curious and playing with your work and playing materials and forms and even other types of materials, bringing things in, trying different things, you will eventually develop a voice that is very distinctly you. That is not hearing in the back of your head. This doesn’t look like what other people are doing. This doesn’t look like the type of great work that I’m seeing online or that I’ve seen in classes or seen in the books. Because it really shouldn’t as much as you might want to do what other people do because you admire their work, you can admire their work, you can love what they do. But just because. You love what they do doesn’t mean it’s what you should do. I mean, I love art quilts. I think art quilts are amazing. The things that these people do is just incredible. Yeah, there’s part of me that would like to try it. But it’s not really where my voice would be best put or used. It’s not where the majority of my curiosity leans, so I’m not going to make quilts.
I’m just not going.
To I can admire them. I can love them, but I don’t have to want to make them, and that is the same thing as when you’re looking at other people’s artwork, even in your own medium. You don’t need to do their work. You can love it and you can enjoy it. But you don’t have to try to do it, if that makes sense. So you have to find what it is that. It really speaks for you and we’ll talk about how you can do that in just a second. But I want to just bring up the fact that we are comparing ourselves to really usually poor measures. Of what it is that we could do so, for instance, social media, it’s if it’s the bane of our existence these days. It’s a great way to keep in contact and to see other things. And we’re exposed to all kinds of wonderful things we would never have seen before. But we are seeing a version of what’s out there that is. Neither representational of the full gamut of what is out there because you’re not getting a full sampling, you are getting whatever the algorithm decides you should get, because these are the things that you spend the most time on and it takes guesses at other things you might spend your time on. All the algorithms are trying to do is keep you on the social media platform. So I guess it does help you find them that you like, but it’s very limited. In that it’s only going to give you the things that will keep you on the longest. So there are other things that could actually really get you going that you could look and be like ohh wow, I have a great idea because of this thing that I saw. But you’ll never see it because the algorithm. Is not going. To show you a bunch of different new stuff, unless you go searching for new stuff. Social media is not set up for our success. That’s not what it’s there for. It’s there to keep you on so that they can charge their advertisers more because they have more eyes on the advertising. That’s what the algorithms are all about. And not only that, when you’re looking at what’s out there and you’re trying to measure the the talent and the skills. Than what it seems other people also like and are enjoying and might buy. If you were selling such things, but the popularity of posts are also skewed and not a realistic viewpoint because some posts are more popular simply because when they got posted because they paid to boost the post because they have a marketing team. That’s. Working on pushing their work and moving them up, and there’s all kinds of things that come into play that’s not gonna make what you see. A realistic cross section of the artwork that’s out there and what people. Like and besides, only one person needs to like any one thing that you have to buy it. You just have to find that market. I don’t like using social media as a yardstick for what will sell, and I guess it helps. You can see trends and what not, but I just so believe in the draw of the original artist voice. Being in the work, being the thing that’s going to sell it, and it’s also the most satisfying way to pro charges to be doing work. That is what you want to make and not what seems to be. Sure. And I think this is also true for comparing your sales to other people’s sales, especially at other shows when you can kind of see who’s doing really well, which is booths that are really busy comparing yourself to them is also a bit of a false step because there are so many things that go into why they’re selling. It could be the market, the way they said the booth or their price points, or they just been doing it for so long. They have a lot of regular loyal customers that. Come by and I know that’s not really helpful if you’re trying to figure out what’s going to help you sell at a show. But there are definitely other things that you can do, and the number one thing is finding your market and we’re not going to get into that at this particular podcast. That’s a whole nother podcast. So let’s get back to the idea that, you know, comparing ourselves to what we see out there. It’s just not the ideal yardstick, so really the big question left is how do we leave that outside of the studio? How do we not bring in those comparisons while we’re creating while we’re designing while we are imagining the work that we’re going to make? And I think the answer comes down to what we are actually judging. If we’re judging our talent, if we’re judging our abilities and we need to on some level because we like to see that progress, it’s a very satisfying thing to see the progress that we’ve been making. So if you don’t do it already, take pictures of your work. Keep your old working if you hate it, because seeing that progress can be so important to our motivation. But I think what we actually can judge and should judge when we’re working, when we’re in the studio when we’re. Getting we should judge our satisfaction. We should judge our enjoyment and how driven we’re feeling, how motivated we’re feeling in the work that we’re doing. Because you may find out that when you are trying to emulate other people, you’re not going to feel as satisfied, you’re going to feel more frustrated potentially. You’re almost definitely going to feel more stressed and anxious about the work that you’re doing, and it shouldn’t be like that in the studio. And sure, the judgment that we make on how well we’re enjoying our work may be driven by how close we come to the skill level that we want to be at or you know how professional we feel our work is or how well it might be received. Those things do come into play and they are hard to keep out sometimes, but I think if you are measuring the enjoyment level for. 1st and how well you are satisfied with the work that you’re doing. If you can get into flow and not have those thoughts or those critics or editors or whatever it is that you want to call it, sitting on your shoulder and you’re just working from your curious child self, then I think that is the best judgment. Of whether the kind of work you’re doing is good work or not. I think it’s so important to keep in mind that as artists, a big part of what we’re doing has to be the process and I say has to be because you never know what you’re gonna end up with. You never know. So if you’re going to sell it or show it or other people are going to like it, you have to like it first. You have to like the process you have to like what you’re doing. This is a big part of your life. You’re gonna put that much time into something and then just hope that other people like it, that I, I don’t think that’s the best approach. Because talk about stress and being anxious in the studio, that’s that’s gonna be nerve wracking, right? You must enjoy the process if you’re enjoying the process and the work is inherently good. Because it is making you happy, it is satisfying to you and then the outcome, the end product that you produce, you know, in a lot of ways, I feel like it’s secondary. I know it’s our end goal to make this thing. For all of us. But I think if we can put a greater value on the actual experience. It’s going to be a lot easier for you to let go of this is what other people are making and this is what it should look. Like, because we don’t really have those comparisons for the process itself. I mean, sure, yeah, there’s some people who do like, you know, real time. This is how I made a thing on YouTube. And you can watch this stuff, but you don’t know how they’re feeling. You don’t know what they’re going through. So you look at what you’re going through and say, am I enjoying this? Is this good for me in this moment? Is this what I want to be doing? Is this what I want to be making? Am I happy? In my creative space and with the processes that I’m working through. And I want to acknowledge that that can actually be a hard thing to determine, because for some of us, we are so wound up in our potential success and comparing ourselves to others and what our success will look like compared. To other people. But I think if you can kind of quiet that down in whatever way you have to now for some of you, you’ll really need to have some time away from looking at other people’s work and reading about other things going to shows or not take some time out and just do things that feed the muse and feed the muse alone for your personal satisfaction. Which is traveling and going on hikes and doing other kind of art projects and spending time with. With the kids family, friends going out and having new experiences going out on adventures, those things will feed you in a way that looking at other people’s artwork will never be able to because what you’re looking at is their experiences. And that’s not going to sink in the same way your actual experiences do. And it’s not going to feed them using your imagination and get your brain going in a way that’s going to take these inspirations and actually funnel them through you and your voice into your work. Does that make sense? So if you have to take time away from looking at other things, that might be a great way for you to do that, to to quiet that side of your your mind that is comparing things or working first thing in the morning works for a lot of people cause after you’ve gone to sleep for a while, you tend to have more of a clean slate as far as influence. That’s something that writers do a lot. Or take a nap before you go into the studio. You mentioned that a lot and naps are necessary. It’s why I have a napping station in my studio. I always have. And then there’s just coming into the studio with intention. Just think I want to enjoy the process. I want to be 100% present and mindful of the work that I’m doing without outside influence and for some of us that kind of mental preparation is sufficient is is good enough and if you can quiet down. That outside influence enough you’ll be able to recognize I’m having a happy moment. I’m really excited about this thing. You go from, you know. Being kind of tired and exhausted and sitting down your studio table to an hour later, taking a break and dancing into the kitchen to get to, you know, fill up your tea or whatever, I I do that. But it’s like I thought you were feeling well, like. Well, I was drawing. And you know, I’ve been sick this whole week and then a couple of times I did actually come out do that. I was, like kind of singing and dancing. He’s like you OK. You feeling better? I’m like, no. But I was drawing so I was happy. So if you can recognize those joyful moments, the satisfaction that you have when you’re in the studio and not thinking about anything else but the actual. Experience you can be happy, of course, with what it is that you produce and you can take joy in what you produce and the connection that you have with other people because of it and the accolades that you get and the sales that you make or whatever, whatever other things you use to judge your success. Nothing wrong with having those as part. Of what makes you happy and joyful. The big thing is you don’t want to have other people’s influences overshadowing your own voice, and in essence creating the work instead of you creating the work, you know what? I’m saying so. I think if we can for one recognize that we do have this propensity to compare ourselves and that it’s natural and normal, and it’s nothing to be like ashamed of, or upset that you can’t control. And then be prepared for those circumstances in which it is necessary, like entering shows and contests and things of that sort. It’s going to be part of it, and you’ll have to look at other people’s work and decide where you stand in there and whether going after those things are worth it. So you that’s something you’ll do, but you won’t do that while you’re in the studio when you’re in the studio. Bringing in as little as possible of that comparison, I think will really help you with the originality of your work with the joy and the satisfaction you get out of your work and if. You’re not sure? You might want to make that a focus, maybe. Let’s say you do that for the, let’s say the rest of this month. How about you do? That. For November cause this month’s almost over that you just look at what am I getting out of the process when I’m in there creating and pay attention to that and make judgments on whether what you’re doing is making you happy. If the time you spend in the process that you’re going through to make what you’re making. Is something that makes you get up and bounce and dance around and sing in the house. Afterwards. That’s my. That’s how I judge it. And one way you can do this is to actually just write down at the end of your studio sessions what it is that you liked about it, what you’re getting out of it, making judgment calls on how gratifying the work was, how fulfilled you feel in the process, and what you did and what you know, what you came up with. So judge that rather than judging yourself. Comparing yourself to other people and then you can compare your days from 1:00 to the other and see you know. You know, yesterday I just really wasn’t into it. And maybe you can identify some of the reasons why and it may be outside influences, not other artists, but like not feeling well or having a lot of other work to do or having family issues going on or things of that sort that will bring down your enjoyment of your work sometimes because you’re distracted. But on the other hand, sometimes. It really shows. You how much enjoyment and pleasure and contentment you get in your studio time. So those are my thoughts. I think we can get a lot more out of comparing ourselves to ourselves and using ourselves and what we need and what we want and how we feel as our yardstick. Then looking at other people and their artwork and what they’re doing as yardsticks for ourselves, right. And that’s what I have for you today. If you want to tell me your stories about. Struggling with comparing to other people and where your yardsticks are, I would love to hear it. You can write me at the sagearts.com at the contact page there or through Instagram or Facebook or YouTube. You can just look for the Sage Arts podcast pages to reach me. Through there, if you sign up for the newsletter, you can reply directly to the newsletter to write me about anything. I don’t care. People write me about all kinds of stuff, and if you don’t get the newsletter, you can do so by going to the homepage of the sagearts.com and clicking on the news and notices button. I just send those out when a podcast is available so you won’t get a lot of e-mail from me, and I don’t share it or. Is it for anything else? And if you like what you hear, hear, hear, hear. And you want to go. Back donations are welcome. You can do so by going to the links or buttons on the homepage of sagearts.com. It’s about halfway down and in your show notes and description sections of wherever you’re listening to this from you will find links for those as well. And before you leave, if you haven’t already done so, click the follow button or subscribe button or whatever it is. Button that will let you know. What else I’ve put out when I put it out? That’s another way of knowing what’s going on. If you want to leave a review, that would be fantastic. It helps other people understand what the podcast is about and whether they would enjoy it. So that would be very much appreciated. But what I’d appreciate the most is if you take this conversation to heart and don’t let comparing yourself to others or or looking at other artwork be something that is detrimental to your own process and your artistic expression. So go out there, feed that Muse. You know, stay true to your weirdness and I’ll see you next time on the Sage Arts podcast.
