Dare to Be Wrong

because it's so right

You know there's no right or wrong in art, don't you? Then why do we always feel we are doing it wrong?

When did doing different become wrong thinking?

I had a typical childhood. I was laughed at on the playground and in the classroom when I did or said something wrong. In first grade, I fell and skinned my knee. Third-grade girls laughed at me because the red blood running down my leg clashed with my red knee-high uniform socks. In 4th grade, I said demo-crassy instead of de-mock-rah-see when it was my turn to read aloud, and everyone laughed. In my senior year of high school, they laughed when I ran for class president because I was too silly or fun-loving, not the serious type that typifies presidential material. (I was the yearbook editor, though. ;-).

As a 20-something-year-old new quilter back in the 1970s, I always felt like an imposter. I assumed the older, wiser, more experienced quilters were shaking their heads and talking about me behind my back because I couldn’t attain the precision that the quilting police demanded. Nor did I want to, which also made me feel wrong. Over the years, it was an easy leap to make myself feel wrong for a multitude of reasons.

When I created my first Fragments in 1999 - small fabric collages I had envisioned, using quotes and photos I had collected and loved for years - my first reaction was, "This is stupid. It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen."

Thankfully, my better self came along and slapped me upside the head (really!) and made me realize, "This doesn't look like anything I've ever seen, and that is a GOOD thing." Still, when I bravely took them to sell at a small art conference, I was afraid I'd be ridiculed. People would find fault with my stitching, my atypical fabric combinations, and, well, the whole idea of the thing. But I told myself, "Dare to be wrong."

Where did that bravery come from?

I had created something I so truly loved, something that expressed me so completely that I felt my soul had been made visible. If I was the only one who liked them, I didn't really care because my liking them was all that mattered. I was the little kid, excitedly waving her latest creation, announcing, "I made this!" I had found my voice and wanted to shout it from the rooftops. I was so elated I eventually felt courageous enough to sell my Fragments on vendor night at Artfest, the first gathering of like-minded mixed media artists. They sold out long before the night ended. I was invited to teach there the following year. And so, my unintended career as an artist was born.

These two quotes have always held such meaning for me:

She had found a jewel down inside herself and she had wanted to walk where people could see her and gleam it around. Zora Neal Hurston

We are trying to communicate that which lies in our deepest heart, which has no words. Katherine Paterson

So, back to you - does being true to yourself ever feel wrong? Do you avoid creating or sharing what you love? Why? Because it doesn't look like what everyone else is doing, or isn't the art style/fad/darling of the moment? Are you holding back on being you?

Does being a learner make you wrong? Is beginning art, novice art, unusual advanced art, wrong art?

How wrong are you willing to be in order to be alright?

I now realize that all those kids who laughed at me with false bravado did so because they, we, you, and I all have the same fear of being wrong. This fear can add another brick to the wall you are building between yourself and your dream of mastery.

Make a New Year's resolution. Dare to be wrong! I’m doing a lot of that right now, and it feels so right.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday on the 25th, no matter when, where, how or with who you celebrate, even if it is just yourself. I’ll be thinking of you, dear reader. ❤️

Quotes of the Week

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
Joseph Chilton Pearce

Rest not. Life is sweeping by. Go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.
Goethe