‘I saw the truth undressing’ oil on panel and velvet - 40x50cm
£700 - new work - DM me to purchase..
“It feels so self indulgent” is a phrase I often hear from mentees and I have a bank pf responses ready including many to do with mental health. Sometimes I talk about the importance of freeing and nurturing the mind through art just like we are encouraged to exercise and eat well for physical health. Both mind and body need attention and art has such a bad rep when compared to music, literature and other creative pursuits..but why ?
My own issues with self worth in art making stem from a lack of belief and encouragement as a teen from those close to me. I was guided towards other career options and it took years before I felt brave enough to follow my direction. Once there I sucked it in as a part of me, as essential as breathing. I was told it was an egotistical choice and would lead to failure and was not a safe career for earning money. The latter is often true sadly which is why I balance painting with mentoring and teaching. Unless you progress to being a blue chip artist it’s very much a long and hard battle to make ends meet but I wouldn’t stop making work now, not for anything.
Lichen doing it’s thing uninhibited
But why egotistical ? Ego operates out of self interest and seeks approval,accolades and validation at all costs. It’s often resistant to feedback.. Art making has to start with the self but it’s more about finding another way to talk, to communicate with the world, to release and make sense of things. It’s self help but not to scale the heady heights of the big I AM. It’s the long game of often slow unravelling, peeling back the layers to re-find who we are and why we are here.
It’s very hard as an emerging artist (what does that mean anyway ?) to navigate the big ole dirty still-often-a man’s-game art world. Social media encourages us to brand, tag,label, define, sell what we do. Reels have to be squashed, compressed, speeded up to road runner fastness (giving my age away here). I actually really hate it although you’ll see me posting a lot, I’m stuck on the wheel and would really like a way to get off or just to have a refreshment stop or maybe just find another way ?
And I always need to check my good self .. why am I posting ? who is it really for ? As someone who does often struggle with self worth I need to clarify this. Mine is not to do with art making though, its embedded in childhood struggles which led to a people pleaser mentality followed by the abandonment of suicide loss. The latter predominates obviously and on very bad days my low worth self will attach to that trauma and feed off it until it falls off replete like a leech.
Stanmer hot house -sneakpeek - new work ..
So finding and maintaining self worth through art making has been a joy, a gift. A ‘not for likes’ headspace has led me into making work just for me, and in making sense of the inner world I find sharing it through socials and galleries a release. Is that self indulgent or is it survival ? If it’s survival then I can help others find survival too and there is the end game, the ripple effect which can be ever expanding*
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