What’s the Point of Making Mediocre Art?

Let’s be real, most of the art I make is mediocre. 

And underneath this mediocre art is lots of bad art. That’s the beauty of working with acrylic paints: if you don’t like it, cover it up!

If you consider I’ve been painting pretty much every day for over three years now, that’s a lot of mediocre paintings stacking up all along my studio walls. 

This begs the question: What am I doing this for? What’s the point? 

If you practice some kind of creative endeavor, you’ve asked yourself this question.

And maybe one of those times you couldn’t come up with a satisfying answer. Maybe it even caused you to quit. Not as a decision. More like, you just stopped drawing or gardening or crocheting. And now you wonder why you gave it up. You wonder, but you’re not sure you want to know the answer. Because whatever it was, it’s big enough to keep you from starting again. 

For me, right now, the answer is loud and clear: I do it because I love doing it. It gives me joy. And it’s the funnest way I know to be in the present moment, embodied, in flow, connected to myself, grounded, or whatever other expression you prefer. 

But I know it takes more than fun to sustain a creative practice.

I’m finding that one of the awesome and awful things about the creative process is that it keeps pushing me forward, whether I’m ready or not. 

Paintings stacking up? Just sell them! 

Just? But this means putting my art out there more. And that means opening myself up to criticism and rejection. What? 

I’m forced to face my demons. And I love it. (So far. Mostly.)

There’s nothing quite like creating something out of nothing. It makes us feel alive. It helps us connect to ourselves in a way that is more immediate than almost anything else. 

It’s great.

And also, sometimes it’s enough to stop us dead in our tracks. Because some days the last thing we want is to be faced with ourselves. 

Seeing our own limitations in broad daylight? No, thanks. Especially those limitations that keep popping up. The ones that come with age-old stories, like:

Who are you kidding, thinking you can do this?

You’re just wasting your time.

You’ll never be as good as that person, anyway. 

The challenge is to be willing to see just how flawed our art is, and to keep going anyway. 

It’s to notice the anxious, critical, and shameful voices when they come up, and to tell them, It’s OK. 

It’s OK to not know where we’re going. In fact, that’s the point. It’s what makes it so freeing. 

It’s OK to be at whatever stage we are in our art journey. Knowing we have a long way to go, and recognizing how far we’ve come. 

The great news is: we have nothing to prove. 

All we’re doing is exploring who we are and what’s alive for us right now. 

It can be incredibly scary and also friggin awesome.  

There’s nothing harder than facing our limitations, in art as in life. But when we do, again and again, something miraculous happens. 

We start meeting ourselves as we are, in intricate detail. And the person we’ve always thought we “should” be starts to fade away.  

The gift of art is that it gives us opportunities to get to know our true selves.

And in the process, if we keep it up, sparks of who we are will start showing up in our work. And then maybe, once in a while, we might produce something that stands out above the rest. It will catch the eye of the viewer and stir something inside of them. Because we were willing to look deeply inside of ourselves.

This is the point of making mediocre art: to feel alive and to pass the spark on to others.

What art, craft, or project makes you come alive right now? How do you move past obstacles? 

Drop me a line to let me know. It truly makes my day to hear back from you. So please, keep it coming. Also, if you know anyone who could benefit from receiving these messages, please forward this email on to them. I want to inspire more people to live a more joyful, creative life. 

With love and support,

Mary B. 

P.S. New! You can now work with me for 1:1 support in your creative journey. If you’re stuck, I would love to help you move past your obstacle(s) and get you playing again. Read more here.

P.P.S. More exciting news. My downtown office is almost ready for an in-person Journal Doodle Circle. An intentional space for meeting ourselves and others where we are. More on that soon!