Make Bad Art
You can't fail, and you might surprise yourself!
Happy New Year, and welcome to the time of year where we all can start over and be completely new humans, free of our shortcomings and failed attempts from the former year! (very much kidding!). New Year's resolutions and I have a dicey relationship. In past years, my overthinking and attempts to decide on everything I wanted to accomplish in the following 365 days of my life in the form of vision boards, art projects and journal entries paralyzed me so much I couldn’t even decide what to eat for breakfast, let alone figure out how to accomplish my more meaningful creative goals. Resolutions were something I thought I had to do, even though it put me in a funk when I realized I kept making the same goals year after year. Today, I offer you a resolution that ANYONE can keep: MAKE BAD ART!
I want to make bad art. So much bad art. Generously, freely and plentifully. Bad sketches, bad paintings, bad dance moves to good music in the kitchen, bad improvised songs, bad writing, etc, etc… You name it, I wanna do it badly. By the end of the year, I want to celebrate and bask in the amount of bad art I’ve created.
Bad art asserts no pressure, sets no rules. Bad art means I can just show up, and when the persistent little voice in my head tells me I need to make sure I create something good, I can say “Don’t worry self, remember? Our goal was to sit down and make bad art”. My brain says, “Oh yeah!”, and then I just get to have fun creating. So far, this little mind experiment has been letting me have more fun in my sketchbook and inviting me back into art I’ve let sit unfinished.
Bad art is freedom, experimentation and playful exploration. Bad art lets us get started, and starting is often the hardest part. Setting out to make bad art means that the worried little voice in my head that wants to make sure I’m a “real artist”, and not some amateurish impostor can let down its guard. And if I actually end up loving what I created in the end? Well that’s a bonus that I secretly know may happen as a result.
I think there’s probably a ratio of “bad” art we have to make in order to arrive at “good” art, and when I say “good art” I’m not talking about a metric that anyone else can judge. “Good art” is that internal “click” you feel when you create something satisfying to you. I’m predicting that as I go along in my “bad” art making pursuits, the ratio of bad to good will slowly shift to include more art I love. The whole point of my wacky resolution is to not let the fear of making art badly stop me from making art in the first place.
What do you say? Want to join me in drawing bad drawings (and surprising yourself with incidental good ones too), writing bad sentences, painting bad paintings, cooking bad soups, dancing bad dances, writing bad songs, or whatever you want to show up for in your own life?
I hope this permission slip to make bad art turns us into creative bad-asses that keep showing up to do what we wanna do and make what we wanna make with more fun and less fear!
I’d love to know what sorts of bad creations you want to dive freely and gleefully into!
A few links to help you in your clever birding journey:
If you struggle with perfectionism…
How to “Birdgyver” life like a clever bird: Making things work creatively with the pieces we have
Some thoughts on grief
What a lift to my day. And every day after, no matter what the calendar says. Free to START - which is absolutely the hardest part!!! Your post reminds me of William Stafford’s juicy poem, “A Course in Creative Writing”, which could also be, “A Course in Creating Art”!
They want a wilderness with a map.
But how about errors that give a new start?
Or leaves that are edging into the light?
Or the many places a road can’t find?
Maybe there’s a land where you have to sing to explain anything - you blow a little whistle just right and the next tree you meet is itself.
Things come toward you when you walk.
You go along singing a song that says where you are going becomes its own because you start.
You blow a little whistle and a world begins under the map.
I’m so in! Love the realness of this post and I agree, the timing is perfect. I want to dance badly, make bad food, and write bad newsletters and social media posts!