1create Life – My art is my therapy and my struggle

Struggles only make me stronger and more determined.

Struggles make an artist.

I paint in frustration with built up emotions and leave the process with completion and reward.

It may seem like I produce work easily and effortlessly. That’s it, it just seems.

The truth is, I (like a lot of people) go through so much doubt and struggles. Times when it feels like I will never get anywhere.

But I have learned one important thing and that is to

Just keep going and carry on.

Some days are good, some days are difficult but as I keep going, I get better.

That’s the thing that reassures me and where I get satisfaction.

I very rarely feel my work is good enough. I am never really satisfied in that sense but I do get a sense of satisfaction when I stop to look and see I am improving.

I just wanted to share that, to say

If you experience this too, you are not alone.

I struggle with my mental health. Painting soothes my tattered soul.

I forget all of my troubles when I paint.

Sometimes I realise solutions to anxiety after I have taken a moment with my art.

I also struggle with getting known as an artist. I’m not quite sure how that is done.

In addition my anxiety keeps me from art shows and exhibitions.

To find an art body or patron that could help me through my difficulties.

Like being able to live on my meagre budget as I can hardly afford food some days, never mind art supplies.

So I sometimes just don’t bother eating some days, and wear clothes either given or bought from charity shops as cheap as possible. But I rarely buy clothes.

The Art and food and yes bills come first.

Just that like many artists. There are many barriers to get over.

It seems like one obstacle after another and I’ll admit I’ve felt like quitting art altogether but I love to create and sometimes it seems art, is all I have…

I’ve thought and still thinking of starting a fine art education at college but even this seems like a barrier, to my ambition, but like I said:

Art is all I seem to have.

Comparing myself to other artists is my biggest downfall.

How did they do that? Why can’t I make images like that?

I have a constant battle telling myself that I shouldn’t want to be like other artists, that I want to find my own style and I am getting there.

But yes it is a struggle, which is why my art changes and evolves as I learn new techniques.

It is a hard thing to see when I make an image I am proud of, but others don’t like.

But I have to tell myself that it is OK, I should be making art for me because I enjoy it, not what others like or want art to look like.

And someone somewhere will like it.

I sometimes struggle with a lack of creative ideas and also with external events unfolding around me that limit my mental imagination. These forces inhibit focus and the will to create.

I often struggle if I compare myself but one of my main struggle is to paint what my imagination wants to paint and block from my mind what others want or think. Not always easy.
I also struggle with my perfectionism hence why I often don’t know when a painting should be left alone but I am getting better and better at that.

I think every artist deals with the concept of art as not a real profession. The rejection from galleries where everything is controlled by few people who decided what art is or what it is not.

From nothing, trying to put down the ideas that first inspired the motivation, in the first place, to go on to then produce the work. It is the full mental and physical effort, that I would refer to as “the struggle”.

I think that many people who create – and this is not restricted to art – are never fully satisfied with the work they produce.

The learning curve never stops!