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Excuse my break from Substack. I just got back from two weeks interstate, at the first intensive of my Masters program. (I’m training to be an art therapist!)
This school is so deeply embedded in the values of relationality, that by the end of day one, you’ve already created multiple pieces of expressive work, responded to the expressions of others (multimodally of course), and met yourself at the furthest edges of comfort, as you create movement, sound, installation, and all manner of art.
When I told my friend that we had anywhere from five to 30 minutes to make representations of an idea or feeling, they were shocked. How could you possibly make art in such a narrow window of time? The thing is, it’s not about art. It’s not even referred to as art! It’s an expression of lived experiencing in the present. It’s a moment or state, captured. It’s not about the outcome.
There may not even be an outcome to speak of. If my expression comes in the form of an ephemeral gesture, did it not happen? Or does appreciating it require a radical unlearning of our understanding of the “point” of art? Does seeing it as a valid representation of something internal require that I get out of my own way?
We often bitch about the industry of art as elitist and insular. A world of tax evasion and trickle-down culture where every generation, a small handful of non-privileged artists are chosen to be lauded and thus get to experience extreme upward mobility. A world that arguably exists to uphold the status of the rich. But how often do we consider the impact and cost of internalised elitism?
Because for the average creative or creatively-curious person, like my clients, just sitting down to make stuff can bring up sheer dread. How could it not, when we look up at these lauded geniuses from below and think “if they can do it, what’s your excuse? You must not be very good”? How could it not, when against our best judgment, even we sometimes think “a kid could do that!” when looking at a piece of art? How could it not, when the 20th century’s greatest love story is between psychoanalytic modes of meaning and any form of creative expression?
Our obsession with interpretation—”what does this say about me?” or “what will someone else claim to know about me and worth, based on this?”—stops us before we even get started. Self-analysis becomes a stop gap for facing fear. And so we busy ourselves with work, grocery shopping, bill-paying, anything else. We put ourselves in the way of ourselves, bodyguarding against discomfort. We navel gaze indulgently and call it humility.
Here’s another take. Anything you express or create is not you. It’s not even a part of you. It’s not a window into your soul, or an inkblot test (or finger painting) to psychoanalyse, or a sign of your talent, or a clue into your worth or validity as an artist. It’s just one representation of a moment. An expression of a state or feeling, fleeting as they are.
Instead of thinking of what you make as an aspect of you, consider what you believe spiritually (or existentially) about life and nature. If you concede that we’re always in a dialogue with the world around us—with people, with animals, with tarot cards, with nature, with ancestors etc—then surely you can separate yourself from something you’ve made. Surely you can give it its own agency?
Can you sit in front of your latest doodle, or poem, or collage, or painting, or sandcastle—and listen to it? Can you remove all prior assumptions and hear it out? Can you see it in its separateness or otherness, and try to understand its viewpoint? If you believe that you are not the dead centre of the cosmos and that there’s such a thing as the collective, can you see the spirit in a creation—not of you, but coming through you?
The author Shaun McNiff says the “artists needs to be re-visioned as a co-participants in creation…This decentering of the ego is not an attack on its existence, but an attempted opening to the ecological interplay of expression.” It’s this decentering that I think of when I hear the phrase “get out of your own way”. You’re not gently pushing yourself to the side to move forward, you’re taking yourself out of the Western matrix of literal self-centeredness.
Unless you’re a diehard rational materialist, you can agree that imagination—even subjectivity—isn’t all yours. It exists in relation to you and everything around you. It’s this webbed dialogue (multi-logue) that forms meaning again and again. Nothing exists in isolation. No “creative genius” is born. They’re forged in a relational web where that label is given to them. The label is the subjective response of another, like everything else.
So what will your response be to your own work? Will you let it speak? Because it has agency whether you like it or not. You’re never really in control of it. So let go of the illusion of control, the assumption of interpretation, and the myth of quality.
We don’t create a piece of art or an expression. We just access it. Getting out of your own way as a creative means practicing dissolving all assumptions about yourself as a creative. It means decentering yourself. It means remembering that “you” is another kind of colonial construct. We all contain multitudes—ask the trillions of organisms and bacteria on/in your body right now. You yourself are a community.
And every time you give yourself even two minutes to draw, write, sing, move, create in any way—you are in collaboration. The surprise and delight you experience in play and creative flow is symptomatic of exactly that. We are co-creations, forever co-creating. Acting like it allows our liberation to emerge.
Practice time
Grab any art supplies you might like to use (it doesn’t have to be much! A pen and paper, or something in your house that makes a nice sound is already enough!)
Write down this prompt: “Creative freedom feels like…”
Set a timer for five minutes. No cheating.
Express something! Remember that it doesn’t have to abide by logic. And it can be an expression of something that feels resonant, or dissonant. Try not to censor, assume, or judge it. If you find yourself swept up in thought, check in with your body. Express that instead.
Now that you have an expression, imaginatively interview it! You can use your journal, dialogue out loud, or just imagine. Start with asking it to simply describe the work; its textures, colours, shapes, lines, sound etc. Then try asking: what’s your name? What are you up to? How do you feel? What are your likes and dislikes? Make sure you respect the expression’s agency and listen deeply.
You can also try this practice with some of your past creative expressions! Have fun with it.
Xo Jerico
SO SO GOOD - so thrilled for you, too! 🤍
LOVE THIS ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥