Art is Alchemy: A Guide to Developing Your Artistic Vision

Chapter II: Self-Acceptance - Accepting the Good Along with the Bad

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Introduction

     Between gathering my scattered thoughts and stumbling to give them words, I was hesitating to write this second chapter of Art is Alchemy. Self-doubt enjoys popping its head through the door, preferentially while I’m working to accomplish a highly held goal. It attempts to provoke fear, suggesting my work will result in no value. It lies to me, whispering that the time to begin has not yet arrived. Its goal is keep me hesitating until the day that I die. Self-doubt yearns to freeze us in place as long as it can manage.

     But we know better than that. Instead of waiting for the right moment, instead of beating myself up for not writing this sooner, I chose to accept myself in this situation. Thankfully, inspiration always seems to beam brightly the moment I trust in my inner voice and set off to work. Fittingly, this article is all about self-acceptance.

     For those of you who haven’t read my last article, Art is Alchemy is a series for artists seeking to develop their artistic vision. The artistic vision is an internal adviser, interceding between the mind and the soul, leading us to create the artwork that most deeply resonates within us. It allows us to translate our innermost experience of life - our feelings, our beliefs, our sincerest perspective - into a tangible, visible work of art. It informs our self-expression, helping us to determine what is essential to our artwork, and what inessential bits can be torn away. It grants us the power to decipher our feelings and interpret them into a visually meaningful “message”. But, in order to develop this vision, we must first know ourselves.

     Chapter one was all about learning who one truly is and what one truly believes. Realistically, this process continues throughout our lifetime, as we continue to grow as individuals. But knowing how to connect with oneself, in order to know where we are in our journey, is the key. Self-discovery helps us to determine our emotionally important ideas, the themes in our lives, and what we truly believe about the world. If you haven’t read chapter one, I highly recommend you read it now.

     Self-acceptance builds and expands upon self-discovery, but it’s equally important. Perhaps the most difficult chapter in the guide, self-acceptance means acknowledging our flaws. Such acknowledgement can be very humbling, if not humiliating. Many of us would rather avoid self-discovery, if that means acknowledging our weakest traits and numbering our flaws.

     But this stage is absolutely necessary, if we so wish to develop an authentic artistic vision. How can we express our perspective on life, if we never fully experience it? How can we truly experience ourselves, if we’re not in touch with our deepest selves? And how can we be deeply in touch with ourselves, if we can't initially accept ourselves just as we are? The repression of our innermost thoughts and feelings, the denial of our highest dreams and our most coveted desires, keeps us from accessing the entirety of our artistic vision.

     Rest assured, your vision of life already exists within you, latent but wanting to radiate from your deepest inward source. Your relationship with it must be nurtured, and that cannot happen until you’ve opened access within yourself. Once you’ve opened the doors to your true inward vision, you may begin applying that native voice to hone your creative vision.

Self-Dislike

     I’d bargain that many more people suffer from self-dislike than we realize, as I meet afflicted individuals everywhere I go. These people typically carry on with their entire lives without realizing the full extent to which they’re suffering. The direct outcome of self-resentment is alienation from oneself. I’ve seen in it myself, I've seen it in family, and I see it in my friends all the time. Psychologist Karen Horney writes, “In all neurotic developments the alienation from self is the nuclear problem.” In lives of the neurotic, “the emphasis shifts from being to appearing.”

     When we’re alienated from ourselves, we may still know what looks, sounds, and tastes good in the world; we still recognize beauty. But we struggle to see the unique beauty within ourselves, failing to nourish and deliver our beauty unto the world. This beauty of the individual has everything to do with their internal vision of life, and that vision is innately truer to who they are than anything they’ll find in anyone else. But if they cannot deeply connect with themselves, if they cannot stand themselves, they never have the chance to experience the utter potency that exists from within.

     Instead, due to self-dislike, they often carry a powerful need to forget themselves, to get away from themselves, to do anything to promote self-forgetfulness. They live life through an escapist mentality, willing to dive into liquor or into the bed of a stranger, or even struggling with simple mind-numbing obsessions, such as with social media or video games, in order to reach self-oblivion. They would rather sleepwalk through reality than to fully face themselves.

     When a person is alienated from the self, what they often experience is chronic loneliness; one of the most common manifestations of self-resentment. To avoid this suffering, they may develop a dependency upon the good regard and affection of others. They adopt identities made up of personality traits that others find appealing. They take on more popular ideals, rejecting their original, and probably more authentic, values. But rejecting one’s true values means rejecting oneself, and in the pursuit of popularity, self-destructive ego inflating replaces the pursuit of genuine goals.

     For the sake of enhancing their public image, self-alienated people are always left to fulfill a role they do not really want. They are always trying to trick others into seeing them in a flattering light. They have shifted from being themselves, to appearing to be something they’re not. Artists do this with their work all the time.

Self-Dislike in the Artist

     In The War of Art, author Steven Pressfield explains how many artists define themselves hierarchically:

“An individual who defines himself in the place of a pecking order will compete against all others in the order, seeking to elevate his station by advancing against those above him, while defending his position against those beneath. He evaluates his happiness, success, and achievements, by his rank within the hierarchy, feeling most satisfied when he is high and most miserable when he is low. He acts toward others based on their rank, to the exclusion of other more legitimate factors. He evaluates his every move based on the effect it produces on others. But the artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don’t believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.”

     This hierarchical mindset that Pressfield describes to us is a mindset borne from self-alienation. Self-alienated artists look upward, downward, in all cases outward in the artistic hierarchy. They do so because they are unable to look within. In this way, they are completely dependent upon both the approval of others for confidence, and upon the work of others for inspiration. They are always missing the real treasure they have to offer themselves and the world.

     Pressfield calls this type of person, “the definition of a hack. A [creative] who second guesses his audience. He doesn’t ask whats in his own heart, he asks what the market is looking for. He condescends his audience, thinks he is superior to them, when in fact he is scared to death of them, scared of being authentic in front of them. He is scared of [creating work about] what he really thinks or believes, or what is truly interesting to him. He is afraid it won’t sell, so he’s tries to anticipate what he thinks the market wants. He [creates] what he thinks will play well in the eyes of others.”

     His description of hierarchically-minded creatives is grimly painted. He makes them sound worse than they are. I do not believe that most of these creatives are genuinely looking to deceive the masses; it is more likely that they are only deceiving themselves. These people are simply self-alienated; they do not know what they truly believe, what they truly love, or what they truly want to say. They often do not even know why they create. They just know that they want to create. I know this because I experienced this for myself.

How I Quit My Dead Passion, and Started Over Again.

     Over the course of my artistic journey, when I decided to search within, I inevitably ran into the uncomfortable awareness of my flaws. When I turned on the light, I found unpleasant characteristics practically mating in the shadow realms. Uneasy as they made me feel, they had to be acknowledged. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was in confronting these characteristics, not shoving them out of view, that lead me to greater freedom in expression.

     One such characteristic was my desire for attention. See, I was very lonely throughout high school. When I discovered how drawing during my classes garnered the attention of my peers, or how my photography granted me positive feedback online, creating images became a lifestyle. It was a very beneficial activity, but driven by loneliness and insecurity - symptoms of self-dislike, and dislike myself I did. The entire time that I had felt socially alienated from others, it was more likely the case that alienation from myself was the root of the problem.

     About a year after high school, I came to the point where my skills were no longer improving with ease, while I was receiving some harsh criticism online. Meanwhile, I had finally found myself in a large group of friends, and had won my way into a relationship. I was quite addicted to this newfound real world attention. Worse yet, they all had substance abuse problems, which I inevitably gave in to. It was so much easier to win the attention and love from these new friends, than it was to earn it through my artwork, especially as I saw the decline in positivity in response to what I was making. The camera gear sat collecting dust in my closet until, one day, I decided to sell it and buy liquor instead.

     Thankfully, after a series of tough life changing events, I quit many negative habits, picked up a better job, and began facing inward toward the empty, shadowy hole. I took this time to rediscover my original spiritual values, to cut out negative influencers, and to set about exploring what truly fulfilled me.

     I spent one summer learning to code, only to realize I hated web design. I used my drawing skills to work as an illustrator, which paid well, but I found the process to be life-draining. I kept feeling an internal itch left unscratched, until upon further investigation, I recognized the urge to pick up the camera.

     Strongly drawn back to photography, I decided to purchase a camera, dive in completely, and enrolled myself in a college program. Miraculously or not, by allowing life to an attempt at extinguishing my sparks of passion, I discovered which fire it couldn’t smother: my love for the photographic medium.

     I use this anecdote to illustrate how self-acceptance means accepting the good along with the bad. There’s a yin and yang aspect there, a duality between light and darkness, and a phoenix reborn from the ashes of its predecessor. Though I had uncovered the negative characteristic of exploiting my talent to fulfill my lonely desire for attention, I also discovered that my initial passion for photography was real and still alive within me.

      Confronting my problems lead to greater clarity. It laid out clearly before me what I should and should not be doing. And now that I was creating my artwork for self-expression, not attention, I discovered a much stronger driving purpose.

      It wasn’t until I met with myself head-on, character flaws and all, that I was able to begin fully working with all that I had. By removing what needed to be gone, through healing the wounds left behind by my depravity, I found a creative vision that extended far forward, motivating me to journey onward, without need for financial or social reward.

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To Begin Facing Inward

     I suffered self-resentment for well over a decade, until I finally forgave myself, and acknowledged my weakness along with my strengths. When I finally befriended myself, I consciously casted loneliness away, and it hasn’t returned since. The remedy was honest introspection. Even for those who are at ease with themselves, the benefits of introspection still abound. We all must delve within to begin exploring the labyrinth of mechanisms that make us tick. We must search for a real understanding of our internal experience, our vision of life.

     What you find may surprise and not please you; our more frightening aspects may make us want to turn on our heels. But be assured that any blockage you’re harboring within you is not essential to who you are. You must realize that any negative entity within you, whether phantoms of the past or impurities of the heart, are filtering your strongest, purest visions of life. These entities must be faced. Any negative aspects are dampening your voice, strangling your heart, and taking your vision for hostage. You would never know it until you’ve lit the lantern, entered inward, and shed the light upon those agents of affliction.

     Such blockages separate us from that creative internal guide. Enveloped by an experiential fog, many artists are lead astray from the path, never reaching clarity in their creative journey. Such confusion denied them passage to the expression of their truest selves. Without an authentic artistic vision, artists are destined to create without ever truly seeing. Their work never deeply fulfills them, and they have little idea of what it expresses to others.

     Others experienced distrust toward their vision, doubting their artistic abilities, suspecting that their artwork never made sense. They continually feared that their efforts went unacknowledged, missing success in the public realm. More still suffered the voice of an overtly pessimistic internal critic who inhibits their creativity to flow as freely as it ought to.

     Once you know their names and faces, once you see just how they affect and pervert your life perspective, you have the power to call them out, to use your authority to remove them, to ban them. But you have to face them, you cannot look away from them. Do not let fear or shame stop you from assessing them. Then the creative channels may flow freely within, and you may begin dipping your pales into the river of your soul, to begin bearing your waters unto the world.

Tending Your Creativity like a Garden

You Are Not Your Enemy

     One of the cruelest tactics of the enemy is to deceive you into thinking that you are your own enemy. I used to believe that I was the only thing that stood in my way. I had no idea that this was a self-defeating mindset. I thought that if I could somehow master myself, and take control of myself, I would succeed victoriously. This mindset would work with great success, but for only a short run of time.

    The moment it failed, I fell hard, and I struggled to stand back up. Whenever I stumbled in weakness, it felt like I was suddenly losing ground in the fight for autonomy. The enemy within had won control again, and took pleasure in kicking me while I was down. In my mind, every time I failed, I gave power over to this dark side of my ego, believing that it had won back the reins.

     This mindset simply does not work; it keeps you running in a cycle of struggles. It keeps you pleading on your knees, or else it pins you down until you can no longer take it. When you finally fight back for control and win the dominant position, it’s only a matter of time before you’re thrown back down again.

Accepting Your Role, Accepting Your Garden

     When I decided to earnestly examine myself, I recognized how this mindset affected my performance, and tainted the way I saw the world. I came to the conclusion that I could not be my own enemy. I realized that this person who I am is my very lot in life. That this mind, this heart, and soul is my garden, and that I am the steward of this garden. That it’s up to me to tend to this garden, to nurture the growth of this garden, and to weed out the negativity.

     I discovered that if there was an enemy, the enemy was generated from within me, but the enemy was not me. The enemies were weeds allowed to grow in the neglected garden, competing with and choking the growth of anything beautiful within me. It was to the detriment of the beauty within me that I neglected my garden.

     The weeds told me lies, telling me that my garden was no longer beautiful, and that there was no value in tending the garden to develop myself the way I’d desired. They didn't want to leave. But I chose to acknowledge my powers as the gardener, to not just envision the potential beauty of my garden, but to find purpose in the process of gardening itself. As the gardener, it was not my purpose to be beautiful alone, but to produce that beauty within my garden and bring it out into the world. I took the time and effort to free myself of weeds.

The Gardener Needs Discernment

     Knowing which aspects of self to nurture, and which aspects to prune, takes careful observation of the self in order to attain discernment.

     Ecosystems are beautifully complex. Did you ever read about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park? The effects were counterintuitive. Regrowth of the willow, aspen, and vegetation, an increase of beetle, beaver, wolverine, and lynx populations are linked to the reintroduction of wolves.

     Scary predators are actually incredibly essential to the balance of ecosystems. You might just find that some of the seemingly negative traits within you are actually beneficial to the overall health of your creative garden

     But I say again, it takes discernment. You don't want to nurture the growth of truly negative entities, threatening to kill your creative vision. This means you must not fear the dark. You must shed that light within yourself to see what’s good and what’s not. You will never know the truest vision which rests within you until you first acknowledge yourself as you are, to accept the existence of those traits, and then decide what to do with them. This is why we need to objectively assess each component from every side, so that we can differentiate between the good and the bad, then we can nurture the growth of the good.

Creative Resistance

     “Resistance,” according to Pressfield, “is what stands between the life we live, and our unlived life. It stands between us and our dreams, of who we want to become and what we want to create. Resistance is invisible and internal.”

     We might think that friends, pets, jobs, or the Internet are what keep us from our creative work, but that’s false. Resistance can come in many forms, such as indulging in sex, alcohol, social media, fatty foods and video games. Resistance is what causes us to procrastinate our work. It is a self-generated enemy from within. Therefore it is essential to recognize this resistance, and to learn how to overcome it.

     Pressfield says, “Indulging may not always be a manifestation of resistance, but if we feel hollow and unfulfilled afterwards, it probably was. We subconsciously know that we gave up our longterm goal for instant gratification.”

The Fear of Letting Go

     Other forms of resistance come in fears. One such fear is that one cannot change direction in their work. Some artists realize, upon further examination, that their style, subject matter, or even their very own medium is not fulfilling them or best expressing who they are. However, because they have invested so much time into their efforts, they feel that they are stuck on the path they followed for so long. To change direction, in their mind, would be to give up everything they worked for.

     This is especially true for artists who have grown an audience. They're afraid that to change direction, to change medium, to change style, would be seen as turning their backs on their fans. They're scared of losing their fans, and sometimes that consequence is legitimate. But would you rather live in a cage, giving up more potent, self-aware work in favor of the current attention you've garnered? It's not impossible to gain the acceptance of your new work in the eyes of your audience, or if it comes to it, to build an entirely new audience all together.

     What matters most is that you are creating topnotch, quality work, the kind that moves from within you. Don't allow yourself to become a facade of your former self. Be yourself, and others will respect and admire you for it.

     The beautiful thing about the arts is that most of our experience and knowledge gained in one craft or medium can directly translate over to another medium. Practicing drawing has influenced and improved my photography, and working in my photography has even inspired my writing. At the end of the day, all art has to do with your internal experience of life, and that experience affects all creative endeavors in which we apply ourselves.

Summary

     I could write endlessly on the creative blocks, restrains, and resistances that artists face. From self-criticism to a lack of inspiration, many exist. And I do plan to address them someday, perhaps the form of an eBook. But seeing as this Steemit post is already at the length in words of a small eBook, I have to wrap it up.

     If you made it this far, I commend you and thank you for your attention. I want you to know that everything you're looking for is within you, but you must take the time to access it. And trust me, it's worth it. Not just for yourself, but for the world.

     To carefully reflect upon ourselves, to intentionally learn, to avidly think, to deeply feel, and to bravely experience: this is the arena for the development of our perspective and character. What else do we have to share with others but that which we harbor within ourselves? That is why we develop ourselves: to purify the inward vision, so that we may discover our truest selves to be embedded into the expressions which we sew into our work.

     Why is that important? Because there are sleepers out there that could use what we have: a deep resonance with life, a patient understanding, an empathetic vision, a passionate storm to wake up the soul, and the reassuring message that we all play an important role in this thing we call existence. When we work as artists, what we give is ourselves; why not give the best of us? We have messages others need to hear, visions of life that others need to see. This is why we continue past merely improving technique and craftsmanship; there is a latent message about life and humanity sewn into each of us, waiting to be revealed by the process of our personal transformation. There exists within each of us, within our life experience, astounding messages that are worth the effort to unlock. There are people who will benefit from that perspective.

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Best regards,
John Dykstra