A few days ago, while searching for freelance work, I came upon an artist’s website via a greeting card company. This artist expressed herself in pencil drawings and proclaimed herself a self-taught artist. Now, I’ve seen the phrase “self-taught ____” before but for some reason on this day it just jumped out at me.
The artist’s illustrations were cute but what caught my eye was the simplicity; they weren’t much more than stick figures…with hair. Images began dancing through my memory: simple, whimsical drawings I’d seen on greeting cards, coffee mugs or even as lithographs. Then I thought about my doodles.
I use doodling to relax my mind. I just start with a shape, any shape, and keep adding to it. Often I end up with some nonesense picture complete with characters; the characters are not pre-planned but as I tend to put a face on just about anything I end up with a bunch of little creatures. I wonder what Jung would have said about that. Hmmm.
Anyway, the point being that I have never called it “drawing” for two reasons.
1) I have not taken formal art lessons.
2) I had a tramatic experience (of the parental sort) and judged myself.
I suddenly realized that my self -talk was “I’m not artistic” or “I can’t draw” and that all I needed to do is change it to “I’m self-taught” and “my artistic expression is unique to me” in order to feel more empowered and open up all sorts of new possibilities for myself.
It is amazing how often we limit ourselves, the judgements we make in our own minds about our capabilities. Writer’s know this all to well…
“What do you do?”
“I’m a writer”
“What do you write?”
Oops. Caught. I haven’t been published yet. What do I say? I blog? I enter short-story contests? I write articles which I never submit?
Say what makes you feel good. It could be the difference between doodling and drawing.
August 29, 2009 at 9:59 am
Well said! It seems a lot of artistic expression is squelched by the two reasons you’ve claimed. Sad, but true. Keep up that healing “self-taught” inner-talk!
Oh…and, start submitting some of those articles! 🙂
September 29, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Hi Robyn,
I saw your comment on my WOW interview and checked you out. You are absolutley right about the limits thing. But all those limits are in your own head and the only one holding you back is you. So, get out of your way and become the kick ass writer you know you really are. Make the reality come true. 🙂
September 30, 2009 at 9:07 am
Hi Sara,
Thanks for coming by…looks like I need to come by more often.
Yes, the realization I was sharing was that our perceived limits truly are self imposed. I felt pretty good when I wrote this entry but after reading your comment it dawned on me that even though I’m writing more now I’m actually hiding behind freelance ghostwriting instead of working on my own projects. Thanks for the wake up call!