The Artists' Curse

The Artist's Curse... Believing your own work to be sub-par, even if it isn't, simply because you've been working with it for so long that you notice imperfections that no one else will.
Apparently, Vincent Van Gogh also suffered from the artist's curse... ‘I’m unhappy with everything I’m doing. Why move around a lot? When I see the orchards again won’t I be more hardened, won’t it be like something new, a new attack, in the new season, on the same subject? And the same throughout the year, for the harvest, for the vineyards, for everything.', wrote Vincent to his brother, Theo, on July 9th in 1888.
So many creative people suffer from the Artist's Curse, where we doubt our abilities, see only the flaws in our work... decide it's all crap... that we ourselves are crap and have zero talent. People will tell me when I express this feeling that I'm being too hard on myself and that I am my own worst critic. I try to counter that by saying if I was not self-critical, how could I ever make improvements in my work? Trying to look at the flaws as tools to be used to do it better/differently next time should be productive, but too often we just feel defeated by it, at least in the short term. Why am I even bothering to do this... so many REALLY good artists have already done it and a thousand times better than I ever could. I should just toss my brushes and paints in the trash! Self-defeat. Self-doubt. These are the basics of the Artist's Curse.

True story... A friend of mine is a very close friend of the world famous artist David Hockney, probably the most influential and successful painter of this century (and a good chunk of the last century). His work sells in the multi-million dollar range. My friend spends a ton of time with David and has traveled with him extensively. Over the years, this friend has purchased several small paintings of mine, and a few years ago right before Christmas he bought an 11" x 14" painting I had done of Dogtown Books here in Gloucester, MA in the winter time. It wasn't expensive... a few hundred dollars, which I was very happy to have at the time. He said he was going to be traveling with David over the holidays and I wished him a fun and safe trip. When he got back a few weeks later he sent me a photo of David Hockney holding my little painting, which he had given to David as a Christmas gift! I was filled with two emotions in that moment... first, bliss! Here is the David Hockney holding my painting which he now owns! That was followed quickly by utter panic... the David Hockney, world renowned painter, can see every single flaw... every single glaring error that I made in that painting. All the mistakes that I can now also see so clearly in this photo in which my work is in his hands, and all I could envision was that after the photo was taken, he tossed it aside and laughed at it... laughed at me. Here's the thing, even if it did go down that way, which I'm sure it didn't, the problem is/was in my head. These sorts of thoughts plague too many of us who put too much stock in the negative musings born in our own insecurities. We need to realize that others really don't see those imperfections that jump out at us as the creator of the work. We need to be aware of what didn't work in the making of a painting, but let that painting stand on its own and not compare it or ourselves to anything or anyone else. That's a lot easier said than done, but without that, we can never fully progress in our own journey as artists.