Performance Anxiety and Art
Lately, I have been hesitant to make art. It feels like I get anxious to get started on a project, even though I also have this feeling to create at the same time. Some days I’m afraid to get into my artwork even though I crave to make art. I’m afraid I will rush into it and make it look terrible. I also feel like I will have wasted time and money on a project if it fails.
“Breaking Away From Anxiety”, 6” x 9” mixed media painting, created after facing my anxiety to create.
I know I need to create some “freedom to play”. I need to free the thoughts that bind me, and just make it even if I make it crappy. Maybe I need to make art intentionally bad knowing it will be awful, kind of like this one inventor who gave a TED talk about her performance anxiety she has about creating the perfect invention. She hardly acted on making anything, in fear it would fail. Then one day, she decided to create a bunch of bad inventions to get past her anxiety, intentionally knowing they would be bad inventions and would fail. She started to make things all the time and got past her anxiety. So she created a YouTube channel where she makes useless machines. She uses this small niche and created a large following and a career. Her name is Simone Giertz.
Through this experience, she said it taught her about hardware and how things work or don’t work. She said, “Instead of building things to succeed, I would build things to fail...Building these things was actually quite smart. Because as I kept learning about hardware, for the first time in my life I didn’t have to deal with performance anxiety. And as soon as I removed all pressure and expectations from myself, that pressure got replaced with enthusiasm and allowed me to just play. As an inventor I am interested in what people struggle with.”
As I was watching the TED talk, I asked myself, “What problems will I solve through my art-making?” I thought I could make a list of what problems I will help solve.
Simone went on to say, “As much as my machines seem like my engineering is slapstick, I have stumbled on something bigger than that. It is this expression of joy and humility that often gets lost in engineering. And for me, it was a way to learn about hardware without my performance anxiety getting in the way.”
Detail image of, “Breaking Away From Anxiety”, 6” x 9” mixed media painting.
Maybe I lost my joy in art-making because I replaced it with expectations and results. And so I was avoiding the fear of failure. I think I will try and make bad art to help me get through this anxiety because art has been my therapy helping me with my anxiety. Especially when I make abstract art. Creating abstract art lifts that expectation of making it look like something and lets me be free to play and be in the moment with my experience of playing with the art materials. It’s liberating!!! We may not have the perfect invention or piece of art, but discovering it with play will maybe be what will help you find the answers.
Thanks Simone!
View her TED talk here:
TED talk: “Why you should make useless things”, by Simone Giertz.
