Only Existing Materials
And Finally Unperfecting
After a short break from the studio, I’ve been sorting through all my materials and equipment. For the first time in a good few years, I’m not involved with or running a gallery and I’m evaluating what equipment I have with everything back in the studio. I’ve got that much paper, paint, fabric and just stuff, I’ve decided not to buy any more and will only use what I have to create new work. Let’s see what happens!
I’ve had an avalanche of situations over the last 15 months and haven’t had much studio time, so when I have had the chance - and once or twice when I felt a meltdown coming on - I’ve just picked things on instinct or what is nearest to hand and used that to make something.
The result of this so far has been three as yet unfinished projects: I took a pair of narrow canvases and some black and white paint with a patterned sponge roller which used to belong to my kids. I think it needs an added something, but I’m loving how it turned out. It reminds me of my home town of Croydon, where I am this weekend.
I painted over an old canvas with all the pink tester pots from my daughter’s bedroom (which we then painted grey), the paint underneath created a lovely cracked effect. I’m excited to see how it turns out as I continue to layer it.
I’ve been experimenting with taking the canvas off the frame and painting/collaging/machine stitching it. I matched a canvas with a drawing of a daffodil I didn’t know what to do with. It was a great experiment, I love working on the stitch element and getting blue pastel on my hands as I’m sewing, it is tactile and sensory and enjoyable. I attached the daffodil using green and gold thread and gave the whole thing a coat of varnish. Now to put the canvas back on the frame…
When I’m working on these projects my mind can try to tell me what they ‘should’ look like, but that’s when they sit there for weeks because on some level I think I have to make them into a certain thing or type of thing and that isn't how I want to work at the moment. I’ve been investing how perfectionism has impacted my life; it sneaks along and all I want to do is express whatever it is I need to express, onto the canvas and then see what it’s come out like. I may then tweak it, embellish it and so on, but the essence of it doesn’t come from a ‘how to’ manual, although I do like to draw in a realistic sense sometimes and I believe all methods of creating are valid and wonderful. Just for me, at the moment, this is how I want to work because it affords me the insights into my thought process, it helps me see what I overlook in the busy day to day stuff. It offers new perspectives and lets me relax, which is not something which I’m generally very good at. Perfectionism is what stops me wanting to share it, I say this in case it has tiptoed into your mind too and you might like to evict it or at least call it out.
Some thoughts on perfectionism:
For most of my life I believed that the term perfectionism couldn’t possibly apply to me. I thought that if someone is a perfectionist then they were either perfect or very nearly perfect. In my mind I existed on the very opposite end of that scale. So I disregarded it.
Two things bring me to reflect on this. One, I recently listened to the book Wabi Sabi by Beth Kempton. Wabi Sabi is the Japanese concept of accepting imperfection. As well as being a lovely insight into Japanese life with beautiful descriptions and rich encounters, it describes the appreciation of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" which is most things when you look at it that way.
Shortly after reading this book, I was going back through some notes in my phone looking for something else. I found the note I’d written when I fully understood the concept of perfectionism and just began to get a glimpse of how it was ruling my life: The things I kept myself too busy to do when really I didn’t want to give someone else the opportunity to decline. The situation with feedback I might not want to hear. The emails I didn’t send because I wasn’t sure the link was working and sending it manually was unprofessional. The setting of totally impossible goals so that I can constantly prove myself right by failing. The inability to let go of one or more projects in order to not be able to manage any of them. And a thousand other sneaky subconscious patterns.
I’ve since learned that perfectionism is common in adults with undiagnosed ADHD and particularly ASD. I am on a waiting list for an ASD assessment but the more I learn about it the more I see myself. My ADHD diagnosis was over 80%. I almost don’t need an ASD one as it has become so blindingly obvious!
This feels like the answer to the question I set out to investigate ten years ago, which was ‘what is wrong with me?’ Now I know there isn’t anything wrong with me - well I know this on a conscious level - my subconscious is still sometimes catching up. There is no blame, just the understanding there was no understanding.
The exercises I came up with right at the start of this journey are in my course Art For Self Discovery. You can try the course at a 75% discount when you download my free ebook ‘Why Creativity is Good for Your Mental Health, Physical Health and Your Bank Balance’.
If you want to listen to Wabi Sabi you can get a 30 day free trial of Audible using this link:
I should point out that I was given this link some time ago as part of an Audible affiliate thing (I do genuinely love Audible). I don’t even know if I still have the affiliate account. So if you click it there’s a very small chance I could receive a small payment, but I don’t think it is very likely. I still recommend it though.
There was an exercise in unperfecting!
And after several months of deep deep perfectionist procrastination, I am actually going to press send!
Not before a beach photo though - I took this a couple of weeks ago when it was hot but very windy, all that haze is the sand. I don’t know how all those people are still there, we walked past and felt like we were breathing sand!
Bye for now,
Sophie X