Creating The Impossible

Painting and creating a sustainable art practice, journal entry 01

Hello, thank you for joining me in these new journals as I write about my art/life practice. If you are new here then let me introduce myself, my name is Emma and I am a painter, ceramicist, writer and visual storyteller, I’m also a photographer and photography is my release and passion. I have many feathers in my hat and enjoy this vast array of artistic endeavours, however, something has been niggling, it came on as I started reading a new book called Creating The Impossible by Michael Neill. I’m only two chapters in but I will tell you what it’s roughly about- Have you ever had a thought, a dream maybe, that makes you smile and excited, yet feels like its impossible for you. I know I have, my impossible thing is actually making a living from my paintings. This feels impossible to me. At the back of my mind I question why I believe this, as I make a living being a ceramicist and I know that that is a dream for a lot of people. The thing is, I always believed I could make a living as a potter- so I just got on with it and as a result, I started selling work, getting collectors, doing shows and it blossomed, it’s because I didn’t doubt myself and I just showed up. That’s the key, it’s showing up!

I haven’t been showing up enough in my art practice. I mean I do sell work and I have work in a gallery but I haven’t been fully invested and sales are sparse. The book has brought to my attention that my lack of investment in my art, is partially to blame for this seeming impossible to me. I invest my time in the things that I’ve already proven make me money, my safe space. It’s a scary thought to take away those things and go all-in on something else. I don’t want to give up my ceramics or other creative pursuits, yet I really want to grow as a painter. So, for three months I am investing my energy into my art practice only, as an experiment and to see if I can shift my mindset to the anything is possible. I used to believe anything was possible, I think the impossible creeps up as we grow older, I think we don’t always get wiser. For instance, when I was fresh from college, I trained as a hairdresser, I had no money, I was from a working class background and I knew I was going to open a salon. I was so determined, I didn’t think about the how or the obstacles, I just ploughed straight on and opened up a business on a shoestring and made it work because I always believed it would. Same later on, when I retrained as a potter. So what if I applied this level of boldness to my art practice… Where have these negative thoughts and doubts come from? Is it society? It feels like the vast majority of people around me, including artists, don’t see this as a way of making a living. My 20 year old self would of boldly not listened and gone all out to prove them wrong, I miss her, I wonder if she’s still there.

If not now then when…

I got on the property ladder over twenty years ago and I have the support of a husband, I’m already coming from a point of comfort, I wonder if this level of comfort has made me lose my drive to strive… I feel guilt at being able to dedicate time to my practice, I wonder if this is also holding me back. Thoughts flow in and out as I start to get into the mindset of putting my art first and showing up. I know from my experience running multiple business’s that my time dedicated to art won’t just be me happily painting in my studio, but will involve showing up on social media, work on my website, writing newsletters and building interest in my practice, and preparing boards, tidying the studio etc… This week I’ve been preparing boards with gesso and working out sizes of paintings and trying to get straight in my head that this is what I’m doing and not to fly off in a panic back to my safety zone. I shall be documenting my weeks and thoughts here on Substack. If you’d like to follow along with my instagram stories I’ll pop the link below. You can also leave comments/ ask questions here and I will reply.

See you next week,

Emma.