The Ugly Truth of Perfectionism -

It’s a home wrecker.

I’ve been back from Morocco for a few weeks now and it has been a struggle in the studio. The clashing of what I knew with what I know now has put me in a state of panic and anxiety. I’ve raised the bar for myself and I’m uncomfortable. Cognitive dissonance we used to call it in education. It’s supposed to be a good learning place; well it’s the sh*ts.

Repping it out

Growing up I had a recurring nightmare. In a nutshell, I was in charge of a large machine with many moving parts. Being a nightmare, the machine didn’t work. It was my job to figure out how to get the machine to work. I think this is where my determination to figure things out and make “it” work began. Enter panic and fear.

Fast forward. It’s hard for me to create something and not have it work out. I can’t just leave it and move on. There’s a level of completion that has to happen before I can drop the focus. If you call me during this mental mode I will not answer the phone. Don’t try texting or email because I have it set in airplane mode.

The drive for perfection is a realtime nightmare.

Solution

An assist

Consider the studio as a gym. Get in there everyday and do the workout. Some days it’s repping with multiple panels. Other days it’s five sets of five on the big boards. The trick is to keep moving and working. For a few hours. This is not the time for interval training and 20″ sessions. This is a nightmare and I need to sweat it out.

Process

Today was that kind of day and I feel great! I didn’t create any masterpieces. Instead, I moved from machine to machine; painting to painting. Paper. Panels. Encaustic. Spray paint. Big boards. This ended the scrutiny on “what’s not working and I need to fix it” to process. Rep it out. Work the negatives. So much was catching my eye that I had no time to get into the perfecting details that derail creativity. In good enough time I’ll need to slow it down and figure out how to make the painting sing. It’s impossible and reckless to jump to that place too soon. That’s perfectionism wanting to end the fun. The joy killer.