I’m picking tomatoes from my garden. Plump, rosy, juicy tomatoes that I grew from seed. Some are as big as my fist, some hang like tiny hearts from their stems, others are cracked open from too much rain; each is a miracle, every one perfect.
At no point do I look at a tomato I’ve grown and say, Hmmm, you look crap. You don’t look like tomatoes I’ve seen on Instagram. I always think, Wow, look what I grew, isn’t that fantastic? I take it into the kitchen, slice it, pop it on a piece of rye bread with a slather of homemade hummus and squash it into my mouth. Yummy.
I’m in my studio. There’s a painting on the easel that’s three-quarters finished. I’m not happy with it. It’s terrible. It’s not as good as most of the art I see on Instagram. None of my local galleries would accept it. It’s silly. It’s naïve. It’s too political. It’s unskilled. It’s weird. I take it off the easel and hide it in a corner along with all the other stupid pieces of art I’ve made the last few months.
Harsh. But that’s where I am in my art practice.
***
I’ve been making less and less art because most of what I create in the studio either gets subjected to the “Is it as good as I saw on Instagram?” test or the “Would a gallery show it?” filter and fails miserably on both counts. Comparison is the thief of creativity. And pleasure.
Has social media ruined my artmaking? Maybe.
Has the industrial art complex strangled my confidence? Yup.
***
This last year I turned away from the studio and towards the garden.
There’s no gatekeeping in my garden; everything thrives, including the plants that haven’t been invited in. Nothing is filtered out, nothing is shamed, nothing is made to feel less than. Even the weeds are welcomed, becoming rich compost that feeds the raised beds. As head Garden Curator I find a place for all the plants; I encourage diversity, locality, and abundance. I deliberately grow too much, knowing the excess harvest can be shared amongst family, friends and neighbours; knowing the earth can hold it all.
In the studio I’m my own personal gatekeeper—over the years I’ve been taught how to do this well. I assess what fits my “brand” and weed out the rest. I look at local calls for art and re-title works in an effort to make them comply with requirements. I select pieces to give the impression I have a “cohesive body of work” and send rejected works down to the basement.
***
My basement has two small dark storage rooms next to each other. One holds my art collection, most of it still wrapped in brown paper from our move to this house, stacked on wire racks, leaning against the wall like archived files. I don’t go in there very often. I call it the dungeon.
The other is my pantry, full of braided onions, flowers drying upside down, jars of dried beans, brown envelopes full of seeds, and kombucha and sauerkraut fermenting. I pop in and out regularly, grabbing preserves, laying down pickles and chutney. It’s a room full of life.
***
In the studio, I feel small, hesitant, unsure.
In the garden, I feel expansive, free, generous.
***
I want to learn from the garden.
I want to feel as expansive, free, and generous in the studio as in the garden.
I want to share my creative harvest, not hoard it away in a dark room of my basement.
I want to look at my art as if it were a juicy, ripe tomato.
I need a new plan. A new creative, gardening studio plan.
This garden studio plan starts by forming a different relationship with the ‘performance’ of social media and the ‘competition’ of the capitalist art world.
This plan starts with dragging my ego out of the studio and sitting her outside the door for a while. Sorry, Sh’ego can’t play today.
This plan starts with remembering: Remembering the girl who sat on the library floor looking at oversized art books; the teenager who used to stare out of her bedroom window dreaming of beauty; and the student with a wall of Renoir posters.
This plan continues with re-membering: Putting myself back together; bringing in all my tools; making myself whole again; making my art whole again. What have I left behind and why? Who told me I had to sever limbs off my practice and hide them?
This plan ends with…? I don’t know how it ends but I’m hoping it ends with remembering the joy of creating; the pride of I made that; the stain of a juicy tomato on the lips and yellow ochre paint on my fingers.
I don’t think I’m alone. I know many artists who struggle with the performative game of social media and the competition of the capitalist art world. Do you?
Maybe the first step we all take is to acknowledge what isn’t working for us, feel the discomfort, then throw all those icky feelings on the compost heap and move forward. Autumn is the perfect time for this.
This Wednesday (October 9th) I’ll be opening Chat to discuss ways of re-imagining social media. Chat is open to ALL subscribers of Private View and is not visible to the public—join us!
Next week, paid subscribers will receive the eighth talking point of my RockStar Artist Manifesto which is all about re-membering your creative practice. A paid subscription costs $39/year or $5/month (the lowest monthly fee Substack allows.) Along with the manifesto, paid subscribers enjoy a monthly video message, access to my full archive of writing (over 100 articles) and occasional private Chats.
Here’s to having an art practice that flourishes like the generosity of summer squash on thick, deep green vines, picked each morning to share with neighbours.
Until next time.
JC
We deeply connect with this commentary.After 5 years of study I found my solace this year in growing tomatoes with my grandson and joining an online community supported by Cas Holmes and Fiber Arts Takes Two. For the first time I feel happy to be enough in my own practice. I have been “caught” stitching on the porch by our two young bucks as I relax in the afternoon. I hope the wheel continues to turn and as you settle into your new space the two elements of gardening and studio support you
Your pantry sounds incredible - nice growing! I love this idea of 'harvesting' in a different way from your garden and working these 'crops' into your art practice. I am very experimental and free with my garden (heck yea I'm growing lemons in Massachusetts!) and would definitely benefit from the feelings of abundance, joy and wonder behind my lens as a photographer as well.