The Magic in Your Art Begins When You Push Past Your Fear
In both life and in our art practices, so many of us are playing it safe. We stay inside the lines of what we know will be met with raves, what will sell, and what we know we do well. But the fact is that if we fail to push ourselves out of our comfort zone, we will miss out on reaching our full potential! Here are a few ways in which pushing past your fear can make magic happen in your art practice and your art career:
Pushing Past Fear Can Revolutionize Your Artwork
As you create art, art you sticking to tried and true formulas, color palettes, and techniques? Can other artists look at your work and identify the artists that you’ve studied with and been heavily influenced by? There’s a difference between honing in on your true voice and getting stuck in a rut.
Artists can avoid burnout by continually exploring new things such as new subjects, mediums, mark making techniques, color palettes, and more—and yet the artist’s unique voice can still shine throughout all these variations. If you find that you hear a little voice in your head that is concerned about whether something will be sellable or likable if you decided to get a bit wild with it, you need to quieten that voice and go for it! That voice is your fear, trying to keep you safe: free of rejection, ridicule, financial ruin, and other imagined calamities. But that fear is also holding you back!
I suggest that you give yourself permission to create some work that you don’t need to show anyone. Create this work from the heart, and make choices and decisions only based on what pleases YOU. Make about five pieces and then display them in your home or studio space so that you have a chance to reflect on them. Don’t ask anyone for feedback on them yet! Journal about what you’ve discovered. This type of exercise should be done regularly to get you accustomed to taking “risks” in the studio (and discovering that they aren’t actually risks, nor are they scary).
Push Past Your Fear in Exhibiting Your Artwork
Most artists start exhibiting locally, through a local artist guild or other group. And what a great way to take this important step! After a time, though, it’s important to have the courage to push yourself little by little to expand your exhibition horizons. For example, you can start applying to other exhibitions or galleries in your city, seeking to be accepted into more selective, juried shows.
The next step is to expand your reach geographically. With your home city or town in the center, make an expanding radius in all directions to neighboring counties and nearby cities and towns. Get onto the mailing lists of galleries or art groups in those areas that have open calls for exhibitions. Maybe you could attend some art events in those areas and expand your network by meeting people like curators, artists, gallerists, collectors, and art lovers. Your long-term plan will be to get your art into exhibitions and galleries in a wider geographic region—and because you did it in a rational, planned manner, your fear never had a chance to hold you back!
If you feel like you don’t have a lot of good local expansion opportunities near you, consider expanding your geographic reach with targeted online outreach. However, the closer the galleries and venues are to you, the easier and less expensive it is for you to transport your work there, so keep that in mind.
I’m “walking the walk” with this advice. This month, I’ll be exhibiting in a neighboring county, Palm Beach County, Florida.
Pushing Past Fear—in Baby Steps
As you can see, I’m not advocating wild, adventurous, daring actions here. Pushing ourselves into uncharted territory in our artwork or our art business doesn’t have to be scary and drastic. You can do it a small step at a time (like getting into a cold pool slowly). The continual small successes provide the positive feedback and confidence boost that will keep the momentum going. I wish you so much success and artful growth!