Art should be enough on its own

I have bit of imposter syndrome going on since I’ve been here on Substack. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are some brilliant writers here who aren’t afraid to write long form posts. Some of the posts I’ve read had to take hours or days to write, which is admirable.

I respect the writers here greatly, but at the same time, I feel intimidated by them. For the past couple weeks, I’ve wondered if I did the right thing by moving my blog here. I don’t feel like I fit in.

I’m not a writer, and have no desire to write. For me, putting one word in front of another, and have it make sense to anyone, but me, is a struggle & far outside my comfort zone.

On top of being a full time artist, I also work a second job that consists of boring admin work. It requires hours of writing daily. By the time Thursday or Friday rolls around, and I’m faced with writing a blog post for the weekend, I’m running on empty. My mind is dull, and numb.

All I want to do is sit quietly in a dark room alone, and recharge my battery. I prefer to be somewhat rested when I start treading on the hamster wheel again Monday morning.

As I was trying to work through why I feel the way I do since moving to Substack (inadequate, out of place, lacking), I realized it’s silly of me to compare what I do to writers. We have a different way of communicating - writers prefer using words, and I prefer using paint & other art supplies to do the talking for me. Neither way is right or wrong.

Caterpillar
Gouache on cardboard

After mulling it over, I’ve decided my thoughts & feelings are ridiculously stupid, so I’m going to keep blogging the way I did when I was on my own website. My rule was, if I feel like writing, I’ll write. If my word bank is empty, I’ll let the photos of my artwork do the talking for me.

Happy Cat
Gouache on cardboard
SOLD                                    

I mean, if you think about it, writers aren’t expected to paint, so they have something more to offer than their writing. Their words are enough. So why, as an artist, should I feel I need to write something amazing to go along with my art? Art should be worthy enough on its own.

If I hadn’t written all of this already, I’d probably only say this - I made these silly, quirky animal paintings, and I love them. Yep, good enough.

I hope you have a lovely weekend. I’m off to recharge.

My work is available on Daily Paintworks, and eBay.

You can also find me on pinksky & blsky.