Perfectionism: The Lowest Standard

 Learning to Fly, from 1970's sketch pad

 

“Perfection is a ridiculously low standard because you can never achieve it.”

Tony Robbins, well-known personal development guru

 

 

 

Perfectionism: noun: a tendency to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable; especially: the setting of unrealistically demanding goals accompanied by a tendency to regard failure to achieve them as unacceptable and a sign of personal worthlessness.

Are you a victim of Perfectionism?

Perfectionism can be the cause of cluttered houses, messy desks and artwork that is left unfinished or never started. We can't get started because we're afraid we can't do it just right.

 

If perfectionism is our standard, we cause ourselves a lot of misery. We find reasons to put things off "until I have time" or "until things are different" or "until some day when the stars are lined up just right."

 

My friend, Marla Cilley, aka The Flylady, adviser to slobs everywhere, says that when perfectionism rears its ugly head, no progress can be made in the effort to get control of the chaos in our lives. She advises that any little bit of effort we make towards cleaning up our homes blesses our families.

 

What does housekeeping have to do with your artistic practice? I'll tell you a story:

Once upon a time, when I was a younger artist, I met a woman I admired, an artist of greater skill than my own. We had a great time chatting about art. She showed me her sketch pad and it was just chock-full of stuff.  Ideas, drawings, scribbles, dreams, cartoons - it was a delight to see. 

Then she asked to see my sketch pad. Yes, I had one. Brand new, spanking clean, and not a thing between its covers. 

It was embarrassing. I explained, "You see, I don't have a lot of money and this paper is pretty expensive. I don't want to ruin the pages by drawing on them something that isn't good enough."

She just shook her head and replied, "What do you think a sketch pad is for anyway?"

The next day she brought me a brand-new sketch pad and handed it to me with this remark:

  "Here you go, use it up. It's just paper."

What a gift! A pad of "just paper" and a whole new way of thinking! No one had ever explained it quite so simply. She had given me the freedom to make progress and to let go of perfectionism. I filled up that sketch pad.

 

I still have it. The drawings in it remind me that we don't have to be perfect, we just have to do something.

Unfinished, From 1970's Sketch Pad

 

In the same way that making the bed or clearing the coffee table makes the whole room look better, a little time spent creating makes a big difference too. 

 

 

 

The practice of Just a Little increases your skill levels. You create momentum and good habits. Suddenly, you're on a roll!

 

The wonderful thing about painting and drawing is that you can improve your skills for your entire lifetime. To have a lifelong quest is a wonderful thing.

 

The alternative is paralysis. 

So, if you sometimes have trouble getting started, I will generously loan you the mantra that I use to this day when I feel Perfectionism trying to rear its ugly head: 

 Repeat after me, "Go ahead. It's just paper."

 

 

 

Feel the Frustration (and do it anyway)

Easter Sunrise over Atlantic Beach

How lovely to sit expectantly at the edge of the sea, watching the sky change colors every moment as the sun rises out of the ocean. How exciting to wait for the perfect moment to begin painting. How breathtaking, inspiring and frustrating!

I realized on this Easter morning that each day, I attempt the impossible. I get up before dawn, try to accurately time my arrival at the beach, find the perfect parking spot, ready my paint box, mix the colors I predict will appear in the sky and wait for the perfect moment to begin painting. I feel the thrill of each color as it appears in the morning sky and transforms into another color before my eyes. Within 15 minutes the sky turns from indigo to bright white daylight, displaying every color in the rainbow (some that I can't even identify: Pinkey-orange? Bluish-yellow?) as the sun makes it's way over the horizon. Clouds appear, transform, change color and are blown away as others take their place. It's a phantasmagoria! How can I even attempt to paint that?

It's enough to make me want to give up this silly endeavor. Who can paint the sky as it changes from second to second? Not me! Better painters than I have attempted it - who do I think I am?

Every day I want to give up! It seems like a dumb idea to start the day with an activity that makes you feel like a failure before you've even begun and it feels like hubris to even attempt it.

I could take a gorgeous photograph each morning, come home to my cozy studio and work from that. I could take hours to duplicate what was in the sky at one particular moment. I could, but where's the challenge, where's the thrill in that?

I know some of my skyscapes are decent paintings; when I get them home and am not comparing them to the actual sky, I even like some of them. But none of them even begin to capture what is in front of my eyes each morning as I survey what God is creating. I feel His effortlessness, the ease with which He creates, His grace. He breathes the sky into being.

God paints with light - my paints are made from earthly pigments - from dirt. How can light be painted with dirt? How can colors made from dirt ever approach colors made from light?

The gap between this effortlessness and my struggle is a chasm I cannot bridge.
It is the gap between God's perfection and my imperfection.

When I was younger, I had a theory: that when artists die and go to Heaven, they get to take turns creating the sunrises and sunsets. Sometimes, I think I can identify whose turn it was today. Monet paints the soft, fuzzy, pastel skies. Van Gogh and Gaughin the more colorfully dramatic.

I want to paint with a thought, a breath, by pointing a finger and sweeping it across the sky to paint orangey-pink clouds on an azure sky.I like to imagine it will be that easy when its my turn to paint from a Heavenly vantage point.

Until then, I won't give up. I'll struggle with my earthly pigments as I continue to be amazed, awed and humbled before Heavenly events.


Carry on, fellow artists, carry on.

Early Morning Skies

 Greetings fellow art lovers who live under the sky.

Of all the habits that I nurture - the good ones and the not-so-good, 

Getting Up at 6 am to Paint the Sky 
is my current favorite.

I admit that each morning when my phone alarm starts its insistent chirping in the dark, I reconsider my decision, but I get up anyway because a week of painting just 30 minutes each morning has taught me so much.


I've learned that creativity doesn't require gobs of time! Painting the sky as it brightens up to create the day is a self-limiting endeavor.

At 6 am it's still dark. By 7 am the show is over and I'm done!


I learned that painting is what I'm here to do. Every cell in my body does a happy dance while the sky puts on a show, taunting me to paint faster - that cloud won't be there in a few seconds and that rosy orange will turn to aquamarine.

 I've learned to paint fast and in the dark. 


I've learned an easy way to practice what I preach - that to nurture your creativity, you must create something every day.


They say a habit, good or bad, takes about 21 days to form. I'm looking forward to the next 14 days, and I don't want to miss the show.