“The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” – Auguste Rodin

The Art of being Mentally Strong & Finding Perspective!

The author Amy Morin, in her book “13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do,” discusses developing mental strength by improving your ability to handle emotions, manage your thoughts, and behave positively despite external circumstances. As artists there are certain issues we face as creatives, but I also believe non-artists struggle with them also. I have considered Amy’s suggestions and formed them into my “Top Ten list” of how artists (and Non-artists) can have a more fulfilling life by taking these principles and applying them to their lives.

1.  Don’t spend time feeling sorry for yourself.

We all have experienced rejection. Our work was not positively viewed by our peers. We were not promoted. But when we stand back and realize this is part of the process, that we must refine our work, and understand where our voice is best heard, we can start to focus on the enjoyment of the journey. By changing our view that a failure or mistake is negative, we comprehend it’s just one more step forward towards our goals.

https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/

2.  Don’t give away your power or compromise your voice in exchange for acceptance.

Relying on peers, social media, and invitations from others to validate ourselves is problematic. This was a problem for me in the beginning of my artistic career and I must admit it still pops up if I am not vigilant. Early on I spent a lot of time with artists who had been in the business for years and had achieved a great deal of success.  It was overwhelming to see how much knowledge I lacked. Ultimately, what I learned was that I spent a lot of emotional energy trying to be accepted by some artists—especially those who were never going to accept me—instead of focusing on the skills I needed to learn. As soon as I started to pay more attention to the peers and collectors who valued my work, my artistic voice grew stronger, my work has been recognized and I have organically developed into the artist I am today.

3.  Don’t shy away from change.

Sometimes choosing to do something different requires you to adapt your thinking and behavior, which can bring up uncomfortable situations and/or emotions. Avoiding change in the long run can have detrimental long-term consequences: you could remain in a rut, not solve important problems in your work, slow your growth or even lose business opportunities. As an artist I have needed to expand the subject matter I paint, fine tune the way I create, experiment with different types of art materials, find better ways to teach students and continually educate myself with information on best practices. Taking small incremental steps and planning on how I’ll respond to obstacles has helped me navigate change.

4.  Don’t focus on things you can’t control.

We can’t control the outcomes for many things in life, we can only control how we will respond to our circumstances. Letting go of the details we can’t control, conserves our energy and allows us to focus on the things we can accomplish. One area in art (and in life in general) which can be tricky is finding teachers/mentors. I have been blessed to have had some really great teachers and yes teachers do provide immediate feedback to us, which is very valuable. However, I have found that relying on mentors/teachers too much can be harmful. Each student needs to do a lot of the work themselves and not wait for the teacher to fix their problems-half the work is trying to work through a problem and finding your own solutions. We build confidence in our abilities by finding our own solutions.

5.  Don’t worry about pleasing everyone.

We all want our work and us as individuals to be respected and honored, but we know that we cannot appeal to everyone. Giving up our need to please others or conform to who we think people need us to be, can free up a lot of needed energy. We can focus on our goals and in turn develop a healthier level of confidence in the direction our work/life is going.

It is important to be true to ourselves so that our authentic voice is seen. Sometimes artists may choose to paint subject matters that they think will sell verses subjects that they connect with and this approach can lead to very dull or non-expressive work. I have always told my students to “paint what you love.” Many times, I have seen my student’s work greatly improve by just painting things that are passionate about versus things that feel they should paint.

6.  Don’t fear calculated risk.

Taking calculated risks can be the difference between living a mediocre life and living an extraordinary life. A recent calculated risk I took was doing a demo on Facebook Live for Eric Rhoads. Eric Rhoad’s attracts a very large audience. Even though my demo would be seen on a much larger scale, I felt that I had had enough experience doing demos and workshops to be successful. I also choose to demo a subject matter that I truly connected with and practiced the points I wanted to make. Taking these types of risks has lead me to more opportunities and given me confidence in my ability to work on a larger scale.

“Winter Solace”, 11x14 Link to demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eunzb_87eBY

7.  Don’t dwell on the past.

We need to not dwell on our past successes or failures. If we only revel in our past successes, we miss the opportunities to grow and have more successes; if we dwell on our failures, we become too fearful of failing again and not trying.  Look for the lessons learned instead of viewing your failed attempts as mistakes. For artists dwelling on the last painting that did not go well is very common. We put a lot of stock into just one failed painting instead of focusing the other 10 paintings that went well. I always tell my students to look for three things you like in your painting and three things you could have done better. Balancing out the negative impressions from your last work to ones that will allow you to move forward can help you to become more successful as an artist and as a person!

8.  Don’t make the same mistakes over again.

This can be a hard one for many people in work and in our relationships. Sometimes the same issues arise repeatedly until we learn the lesson, or find a better response for a more productive solution.  As artists, our craft requires us to paint a lot of paintings in order to gain skill. Even though we put a lot of thought into our work when we start to create, we inevitable end up making some of the same mistakes. We may frequently put our focal point in the center, use the wrong color or value in an area, have issues with too many tangents or our edge work may not be varied. The list can be endless. If we continue to do our work without analyzing what’s working and what’s not, we will not be able to reach our goals and will get frustrated. Making a plan for our paintings before we begin and identifying the signs of unwanted patterns can help us move forward.

9.  Don’t resent other people’s successes.

Each of us grows at different times and are at different stages in our life journeys. Sometimes it is hard not to be jealous of other’s success when things in our career have slowed down or come to a halt. We can see each other’s lives and successes immediately on social media and we can perceive that they it is easier and distort the actual reality of the situation.

Focusing on teamwork and bringing people together whose skills complement one another in my opinion is a better way to learn and build relationships and avoid jealousy or resentment with others. I wrote a blog for the Oil Painters of America on "Building Art Communities-Creating Collaborative Circles"; how the Impressionists painted together and learned from each other to improve their work. There was a spirit of comradery instead of competition. Here is the link for the article: https://blog.oilpaintersofamerica.com/2018/07/building-art-communities-creating-collaborative-circles/ if you’d like to read it.

Another example of teamwork happened in 2016, I had the idea of putting together an exhibition at the Peninsula Museum of Art in Burlingame. The theme of the exhibition was field to studio, focusing on the artist’s process of doing field work and color studies and then bringing their work back into the studio to produce much larger studio painting. I knew I had a lot of skills to make this exhibition happen, but at the time was lacking the expertise in some key areas. I enlisted the help of Paul Kratter and Kim Lordier who together brought the needed expertise that made this exhibition much stronger. Because of this strong partnership, our exhibition “Northern California Impressionism: Field to Studio” drew the largest audience for opening night and gained more press than any other show at The Peninsula Museum of Art.

Songs of Minarets by Kim Lordier  https://www.kimfancherlordier.com/

10.  Don’t expect immediate results.

People who are willing to develop realistic expectations and an understanding that success does not happen overnight are able to reach their full potential.  Some examples of businesses that Amy Morin states in her book are Twitter and Amazon. Twitter’s founder spent eight years creating the mobile and social products before founding Twitter and Amazon wasn’t profitable for the first 7 years. There is often the perception that business or careers are overnight successes but upon further scrutiny we realize that this is often not the case. It requires a lot of time and dedication to get good in any field. 

One book, I love is James Clear’s “Atomic Habits’. James stresses the importance of “the aggregation of marginal gains”-searching for the marginal improvement in everything you do. A 1% gain each day in improvements will result in an 37.78% gain for the year. Your work is never wasted, just stored for later use-so keep going!

James Clear link: Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones