Last week I took advantage of the long July 4th weekend to rest and not write my usual weekly substack. A nanosecond of guilt shocked my body but I bet most of you didn’t even notice, did you? I worried that everyone would unsubscribe due to my blatant display of inconsistency but actually, I gained two new subscribers. The consistency mantra is a myth: Automatons are consistent, humans aren’t. And that’s okay. Being human is beautiful. I will not be a machine.
Today’s mantra:
I WILL NOT BE A MACHINE
All the ways I am inconsistent:
I don’t make art every day
I take regular long breaks from the studio
I work with my energy: some days I make art for 10 hours, some days for 30 minutes
I don’t post on social media every day - I don’t check it every day - I take regular long breaks from socials but sometimes I’m scrolling instagram for hours
I move forward and then move backward in my art practice
I zig-zag and circle around subject matter and art mediums
Sometimes I love making art, sometimes I find it incredibly hard
I don’t hustle or grind, I rest, but the art world exhausts me
Art is everything to me but some days I feel like I could give it all up
I enjoy watching “influencer” videos but I’ll do the opposite of their advice
I love being inconsistent.
I love being non-compliant.
I am not a machine.
I am a healthy, happy, human.
Inconsistency is vital to my health and happiness.
Resist the consistency myth.
Over the 4th of July holiday, Mr C and I camped out on a nearby island in our teeny Airstream trailer, TinTin. We sat outside drinking homemade kombucha and reading books: me reading Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness; Mr C reading Limitless by Jim Kwik. Mr C is a serious reader. He speed reads. He tries to cram information into his brain at the speed of light and lately has been on a mission to upgrade his brain. I, on the other hand, am a slow reader. I will read and re-read one sentence over and over again; think about it; read it again; write notes about it; think about how that sentence is relevant to me. It takes me weeks to read a book. What can I say? Opposites attract I guess :)
In an effort to bridge the gap between our reading styles, I leafed through Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life, trying to find a common thread with Brené Brown’s work. Gosh, Limitless is a boring book - full of generic growth mindset BS - but I did find a little game to play with Mr C: The passion/purpose game (I made it a game, the author calls it an exercise). Here’s how you play:
As quickly as possible, without overthinking, fill in the blanks…
My passion is _____ and my purpose is to ______
The idea is that the blanks relate to each other, for example:
My passion is art and my purpose is to support other artists.
Or
My passion is beauty and my purpose is to help others see the beauty of this world.
I was on a roll with this…
My passion is painting and my purpose is to become the best painter I can be.
My passion is baking scrumptious cakes and my purpose is to feed sweet yumminess to my friends and family.
My passion is creativity and my purpose is to live a wild creative life.
Mr C refused to play! I think the game trivialised his attempts to unlock his exceptional life ;)
(Side note: I already live an exceptional life.)
I’ve only read a few pages of Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone because I started thinking and writing about a topic that appears on the very first page of the book: Calling in your “council”. Brené writes about how when she’s creating something that feels risky or challenging, she looks to “men and women who have shaped the world with their courage and creativity. And who have, at least on occasion, pissed people off.”
This idea is not a Brené creation, I’ve come across it before, but she brought it back to my attention and I started writing a list of artists that I can look to when I feel I’m challenging the norms, refusing to comply, being inconsistent.
Tracey Emin: for her raw honesty and creating work that centers herself unapologetically
Louise Bourgeois: for being stubborn and cantankerous, bucking the accepted stereotype of the “nice” woman
Maggi Hambling: for saying exactly what she feels to the art world and never holding back
Alice Neel: for her persistence, resistance, her refusal to create “pretty” portraits, her courage in asking FBI agents to sit for a portrait when they came to investigate her
These are the artist women I want to be like!
Who would be on your advisory panel? Tell me below.
I am heading into six months (at least) of extreme inconsistency. I am moving house, changing studios, and re-evaluating how I want to show up to the world with my art practice. I am not afraid of this, quite the opposite, it’s exciting to me. Looking back at other times of great upheaval in my life, they have always ended up being times of huge re-invention and innovation. Consistency is wonderful for honing skills but is not a prerequisite for creative ideation.
My recent leaning out from Instagram has been a revelation. Instead of spending time scrolling, I’ve started a new tiny peer support group for artists, written a book plan, planted sweet peas and runner beans, painted a staircase that has needed a re-fresh for a year, repaired a dress that has had a broken strap for at least six months, and made gallons of kombucha (let me know if you need a scoby!). Turns out that being Instagram Inconsistent is good for me. I’m thinking I should start an II (Instagram Inconsistent) Club. And no, I haven’t lost any followers - not that I would care if I did. It’s strange how we tangle ourselves up in the web of social media companies and oh so gratifying when we are able to snip those threads. I recommend trying it.
Until next time.
JC
Resources:
Brené Brown’s book Braving The Wilderness:
But recognizing the limitations of Brené’s work and acknowledging the criticisms of it:
https://drcareyyazeed.com/the-dangers-of-courage-culture-and-why-brene-brown-isnt-for-black-folk/
This video of Maggi Hambling talking about subverting expectations:
This zine written by Marlee Grace:
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I might have to write my own deviant artist list! Overturn all the systems I say!
Hmmm who would I call in to be my advisory panel? Great question. A few who come to mind, Leanne B. Simpson because she does almost all her creative genius work outside the gaze of social media. The same goes for Christie Belcourt. Yes she has a presence, but it is minimal. I would also call these two because their lives are just as much a living creative act of resistance as their creations. They are a whole package and I love that about them.