Bad beginnings, again

Sometimes a bad start is the work

People ask, “How’s your art? What are you working on? Is there an exhibition coming anytime soon?

Mostly, I’ve been saying “Not much”. Which is true, and also not the whole story. Two weeks ago, I made some marks in my sketchbook.

This is what I know I can make

This time last year, I was in a very different place: finishing new works, entering competitions, exploring opportunities.

This is the kind of work I was making a year ago. This is what I know I can make. Who is King of the Birds? (Cé bhuil Rí na nÉan?)

It is one thing to be uncertain because you are beginning to learn a new skill. It is another to be uncertain after you have made something skillfully and with conviction. Somewhere between then and now, the thread slipped through my fingers. What was first a beat became a pause, then stone-cold silence.

Even this newsletter became difficult. With nothing progressing, I had nothing to report. No new ideas. People read these letters and sometimes reply, and that connection matters. Guilt crawled into a space once occupied by motivation.

Guilt is not creative energy

So I made some bad drawings. No concept. Not attempting to accomplish or progress anything. The point was to stop trying to make something and simply do something. That was harder than it sounds.

It is hard to suspend judgment when you have technical skill. It is hard to make bad ‘art’ when part of you, in some small way, aspires to be ‘an artist’. It’s hard to begin when that reminds you of the many times you did not before.

These marks are neither impressive nor useful in progressing an artwork. For now, that is not their purpose.

Expectation is the block

I used to think creative block meant having no ideas at all. I also believed it to be the reserve of real artists, real writers, poets, composers and songwriters. Those good enough to make a living from art.

In professional life, creative work is measured by its usefulness: innovation, ideation, and problem-solving. That is functional creativity. It’s powerful stuff, but when imagination is purely functional, our sketchbooks stay closed. Our ideas, our creative impulses, tiny signals, are dismissed - filtered out as noise - before they have a chance to become anything.

When life is purely functional, we hesitate to follow that odd thing we just noticed. To cultivate imagination for its own sake. When too many expectations are attached to the beginning of things, it’s hard to begin.

That block is for everyone and anyone who tries to keep imagination alive.

Start close in

I borrowed that from the title of a poem by David Whyte.

Start close in,

don’t take

the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don’t want to take.

My bad drawings help precisely because they’re not secretly good. They don’t announce a new body of work. They’re just a first step.

For the keepers of imagination

These letters are for those of us who seek ways to keep imagination alive, for its own sake. They are for you if you don’t want to or can’t escape to the cabin in the woods, reconnect with your inner child, or quest for ancient wisdom (all worthy, just not for me right now).

I often draw on Irish myth and folklore for inspiration in my art - as a way to examine modern-day dilemmas from a different perspective - the technology of story and wild imagination. That doesn’t mean I’m going to pause my mortgage repayments and camp out in a hut made from hazel branches.

A first or one of many beginnings

If you’re struggling with your own block, what’s the smallest step you could take?

A single mark. An incoherent paragraph. A snapshot - not even a photo. A tuneless song, played off-tempo. Ten minutes with a notebook. One line copied down because it’s following you around, tugging at your sleeve? It doesn’t matter if it’s your first beginning or one of many.

So, what’s your bad beginning?