5:54 PM

Easter Nest Fina
© Laure Ferlita
All Rights Reserved

A few more thoughts to go along with Teresa's wonderful post below about ancient wisdom. The fear of failure, of embarrassment, of success even, is the domain of the left brain. The left brain is doing its best to keep us from embarrassing ourselves, failing, succeeding, when the way is not clear before us. The left brain uses fear to immobilize us as well as to make us believe there's no use in trying something new, different, challenging, and so forth.

The right brain, struggling to be heard, to have an opportunity to "work" calls for inspiration - a way to get us to go ahead with the project and to ignore that voice of "reason". Therein lies the problem. It's usually not inspiration we need, but action. To take action anyway, by ignoring the voice, setting judgement aside, and simply begin. It is that simple and that difficult.

I was reading on Elizabeth Gilbert's web site, author of Eat. Pray. Love., and she discussed writing the book, and being her own worst critic with a mantra of how horrible her writing was when she realized it was NOT her job to judge the writing. It was her job to write. That was the promise that she made - to write. Period. 

I took her words to heart. It is my job to paint. Not to judge what is painted. I can assure you if I were doing the judging less than 10% of my work would ever be seen by anybody but me. I think most artists (and I define artists as just about anyone in a creative pursuit) are the same way about some, if not all, of their work. It's not good enough. It could be better. I should have done this. I should have done that. ENOUGH!!

How many creative masterpieces have never made it out of our thoughts, let alone our studios because of these thoughts? We are the only ones who can bring these pieces into the world, and yet we wait for inspiration, listen to the voice telling us it's no good, wait some more, and finally, let the idea pass us by. Why? 

I ask you to suspend judgement, tell the voice to hush, and begin. Do not judge. Do not listen to the well-meaning voice. Begin.  

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4 Creative Thought(s)

  1. I love this series you are running. It's definitely helping me get over my "judging my work" thing. You are very inspiring, and I think it's working on me! Thank you (and please keep it coming!).

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  2. Your comment made me smile, Kelly - I think every artist (and yes, you definitely are one) needs to hear this message often. I know I do, and this reminder is as much for me as for you, but it's good to know that it's helping!

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  3. Well said, Laure!

    I really like the part from Elizabeth Gilbert about just doing, not judging. I'm going to try to deeply internalize that and let it guide me. Thanks for sharing... that was great!

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  4. Oh, and one more thing (yes, senility gets the better of me at times!).... your Easter eggs painting is BEAUTIFUL!

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