I think one of the hardest things about making creative work is finding the balance between what makes you happy and what makes others happy. For instance, when I started this mixed media piece, I struggled. I had wanted it to work out a certain way and it just wouldn't. Eventually, I got the painting to a really good spot and then I kept noodling around and I messed it up. So I scraped away what wasn't working for me and started over. I had posted some images of this process. Normally I don't have a problem with showing process pictures, but when you're in new territory or aren't feeling 100% confident, revealing yourself too early puts you in a vulnerable position. So I posted some pictures that showed the aftermath of me pulling up layers of paint and collage and surprisingly people liked it and that was almost worse than if people hated it. Then when I posted another "in process" picture, many of the people who saw it the first time said they liked that version better. At that point, we'd already passed the Rubicon and it was too late to backtrack. The danger here is that I stopped to consider this. Could I potentially recapture some of the chaos and piece together the mess I made? The answer was NO. It also dawned on me that there were too many opinions in my head and I had to listen to my heart and mind and follow my own artistic muses.
And this is what happened:
I learned a lot in the creation of this piece. I know that I learned more than if everything worked out smoothly. Sometimes you need those hiccups to make you a better artist.
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