22 Things I Wish Young Artist Me Knew
(and she probably did, let’s be real)
Heyyyyyy, it's Sundayyyyy and I've got a few things to sayyyyyyyyy:
The delivery of my newsletter is changing to SUNDAY. Soul day. So watch out for me tryna punch your heart with my heart then. (New chapters from my memoir will still be landing in your inbox every other Tuesday.)
It's Mother's Day. Aye. The content of today's newsletter—22 Things I Wish Young Artist Me Knew—has nothing to do with that. Except it has everything to do with that. Let me explain:
A few years ago, in an interview that I can't find (trust me, I tried) I heard an artist reference this Tibetan truth:
The greatest artist is he or she who is most transformed by the work.
12 years ago I realized that for me to be the artist I wanted to be, I knew I had to become a great truth teller. But the truth I was wrestling with at the time felt so shameful: I had never wanted to become a mom or a wife, I felt really bad at it, I was drowning in guilt and I desperately wanted to run away from my life.
Some part of me knew then, as well as she knows now, that putting myself first, while it would appear to others as running away from my children, was my only hope of finding my way to them.
Traveling the world as a photographer taught me to see. To truly see. It taught me that beauty is a function of profound attention. It taught me that wherever I placed my attention, so was there beauty. Because beauty lives in everything and everyone. There was nothing outside of me, or far away from me, that offered more beauty than what was already inside and right in front of me.
This revelation changed everything. And I did not get there by conquering myself. I got there by loving and accepting myself. As a human. As an artist. It's been the hardest work of my life.
The day I learned to see my children did not come without grief. Did not come without the crushing realization of how many years I had not been really looking, even though I was pointing my camera lens at them.
In the most real sense, it was just like the Amazing Grace lyric, “I once was blind but now I see”. I screamed and wept for the true beauty that was them and us and had been ours all along.
The seeing let me love. The seeing let me love with satisfaction for what I already had, rather than chronic dissatisfaction and hunger for all it seemed I didn't.
This transformation—from despising myself as a mother to loving the great work of motherhood with devotion I'd never known before—remains my greatest achievement as an artist. All paths are unique, but I wouldn't have gotten there without allowing myself to put my art first.
So happy freaking Mother's Day.
And without further ado, here are 22 Things I Wish Young Artist Me Knew.
1. LET IT BE HARD.
It's supposed to be. The trick is to soften into that hardness. Greet it with ease, with a lack of intimidation. Let your fear come with you, trembling in your pocket. Every piece of the process is natural. Understanding this, opposing none of it, and striding forward with grace instead of struggle or self pity is how you embrace your invincibility.
2. IF YOU RECOGNIZE THE PATH YOU'RE ON, IT'S NOT YOUR PATH.
It's someone else’s. It's a formula you're following. This may be necessary in order to learn for a time, but get off of this known path as soon as possible. You should be making your own and it should feel new and unknown.
3. MAKE WITH INTENSITY FROM YOUR PLACE OF INTIMACY.
What is intensity? It's the most amount of energy possible packed into its most efficient form. Intensity is a whisper.
What is intimacy? It's where your secrets and strangeness and contradictions live. It's where you long to be understood and what you fear no one ever could or will. It’s your late night, slumber party, your timeless self. It's being brave enough and silly enough and honest enough to go there. To normalize the unknown in you that most will bury until they become calcified fake versions of themselves.
The place you’re afraid no one will ‘get’ is exactly where you should create from.
4. DON'T ASK YOURSELF IF YOUR WORK IS GOOD.
Don't ask yourself if people will like it. Don't ask yourself if it makes sense. Ask yourself if your work is alive. That's what makes it great. That’s what makes it last.
5. THE NUMBER ONE FACTOR IN WHETHER OR NOT YOU WILL SUCCEED IS YOUR BELIEF THAT YOU WILL.
Believe like a child believes. Which is to say, you don't just believe. Somewhere inside, you actually KNOW. If this sounds like new age manifesting bullshit, that's because it is. AND it's ancient wisdom. And it WORKS. So get over yourself and get to it.
6. THE NUMBER TWO MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN WHETHER OR NOT YOU WILL SUCCEED IS TAKING THE STEPS TO ACTUALLY GET THERE.
Your belief will be a lantern that illuminates those steps. But you have to actually have the courage to take each step for it all to come together.
7. SPEND MOST OF YOUR TIME DOING WHAT YOU WANT TO DO. SERIOUSLY.
This is your rodeo. You get to choose the moves. When you use your desire as your engine you are magnetic. You are unstoppable. You are sustainable because you are letting your passion drive the bus.
8. WHEN YOU INEVITABLY MUST CONFRONT A STEP YOU DO NOT WANT TO DO, DON'TJUST MUSCLE THROUGH.
Find a way to want it and make it yours, or it's not the right step. (Sometimes this is as easy as lighting a candle.)
9. DON'T BE AFRAID OF ANYONE.
They don't know more than you do but they may have been doing it longer. Learn what you can from them. And try to hold onto the thing the oldtimers sometimes lose—your freshness. Your passion. Your eagerness. Your gratitude.
10. TRENDS ARE LIMITS.
Play with them. Start them. But don't name them as your style or believe it's who you are, or you and your voice will fade as the trends do.
11. LET NO VOICE BE LOUDER THAN YOURS.
I don't care whose it is—I mean it. If you can’t hear yours the loudest, turn off all the other voices until you can. Yours is the voice that must be your North Star and compass.
12. THE HUNGER OF A YOUNG ARTIST IS SO, SO BEAUTIFUL.
It's even more beautiful than arriving and getting the thing you think you want. Believe this and if you are that young, hungry artist: say thank you. Know that you are living one of the best parts of your story. Enjoy your hunger. Enjoy your dreams. Let them make you more alive than the others—more real than you have ever been.
13. YOU MAY GET LONELY.
That's part of it. But you're not working alone. So ask for help. Learn all of the languages for asking. Learn how to ask your ancestors, the trees, the Earth, the dancing light and elemental presences, and all the invisible forces that be. Yes, yes, yes—when you go after what you want the whole universe conspires in your favor. BUT. That's because this thing you are doing, this making art? It’s SO MUCH BIGGER THAN YOU.
14. SOLITUDE AND STILLNESS ARE REQUIRED.
You can't skip this. It’s how you hear the song trying to be sung through you.
15. IF YOU STOP TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT WHO YOU ARE TO YOURSELF, YOUR ART WILL DIE.
If you try to live a life apart from the truths you know, your art will die. If you want to make the stuff that lasts, you have to tell and walk and live and dream in truth. (Warning: The truth is changing all of the time. Find the forever truths to ground in. Be brave enough to evolve with the changing truths.)
16. FORGIVE YOURSELF.
Again and again, forgive yourself. When you are wrong, admit it, make amends and begin again. It's never over.
17. SUPPORT OTHER ARTISTS.
Where you find yourself unable to support another artist reveals your own limitations as an artist.
18. DON’T WASTE A SECOND BEING JEALOUS.
It’s a time suck. Jealousy is a seductive road to giving your power away. Reclaim any time you spend comparing yourself to others and use it to make your art instead.
19. WHATEVER HAPPENS, DON’T BECOME CYNICAL.
The world doesn’t owe you more than anyone else. No one is forcing you to make art. But you are lucky to have heard the invitation. And you are brave to be answering the call.
20. IF YOU'RE IN IT FOR THE RECOGNITION OR REWARD, GET OUT.
To do it is the reward. The only reward worth anything. Artists who can’t NOT make their art understand this.
21. DON’T CONFUSE MAKING ART WITH TRYING TO BE UNDERSTOOD.
Say and make it in the way you understand. From there, let it find the people it is supposed to connect with. Some will, and should, be confused.
22. INTUITION IS EVERYTHING.
I know I started this list with “let it be hard”. But if you simply listen to and follow your intuition at every turn, and let go of the rest—I promise it can be easy.
Beyond beautiful!