Artist's Life: The Worst Enemy of Creativity is Self-Doubt

Sep 18, 2017
2 min read

Sylvia Plath. Did you experience times when your worst enemy is yourself? Prof. J. Peterson, psychologist from University of Toronto said that artists are creative, energetic, break rules and push limits until they start to think. He said, he knows, because he works with them. My family laughed at that and we vowed not to ever think, only to work and create. But what happens when the anxiety sets in and your creativity, your soul starts shaking within the body?

One of my friends and an art professor said many of her college friends do not do art anymore. Some drink. Some stop drinking and want to go back to create but it is hard to start all over again, after lost time. In fact, if you designate the time, if you practice, one step leads to another. Today I wiped my spatula to clean it up and noticed a potential for a new approach, admiring texture that I wouldn’t know before. So, protect your precious time.

Self-doubt is surely poison we all drink. All artists are on the same boat when it comes to that. I really don’t like this melancholy and try to disregard it like bad weather. I repeat to myself “It is work, so work” and things move on. There are times, though, that it is just too annoying to stay in one’s skin and then off I go … out of state… but not so far that I cannot return. Some people like cruises or vacation in Mexico. I like to go out away from the city and see what is there. The country side in fall has a lot to offer if one looks closely and the people are far more inviting and they actually want you to be there and talk to them. You are welcome in a small town and your soul rests.