why you should banish consistency and embrace persistence + prestige vs freedom on Off The Grid!
investigating common art myths and how falling off is a bridge to what's next
Before we get into talking about the messiness of art habits, I have super exciting news! Today, I am on an episode of Off The Grid with Amelia Hruby, PhD where I talk about the expectations of art school, prestige vs. freedom, the death of my dream job, and a LOT more. I truly love how the conversation turned out and would love for you to tune in, support the show, and hear the story.
listen to the episode
I also want to remind you that I have tickets on sale now for my new Drawing Class that starts March 28th and runs through April 18th!
We are going to have so much fun working with words, crayons, pencils that will make you ask “wait, you can do that?!”, and systems that will make drawing from life finally click! We’ll balance technical skill lessons with fun, playful sessions, intention setting, and exercises to help you build a practice with drawing that’s actually sustainable long-term.
If you’ve always wanted to keep a sketchbook but thought it was intimidating, stressful, or don’t know where to start, this is the class is for you.
see the syllabus & sign up
How the myth of consistency undermines our creative impulses
As I’ve been writing the lesson plans for Start Drawing: Building a Compassionate Sketchbook Practice, I took a look back through my commonplace book habit I’ve had since 2008. For the longest time, I called these sketchbooks, but they were full of 90% writing and often happened in bursts. Creative energy is weird like that. Clear patterns emerged of inspired, long form notes to myself, the seeds of essays, packed calendar to-do lists I drew by hand, and an occasional drawing — usually made to stave off tiredness in a critique room at art school.
I didn’t keep a sketchbook of drawings only until 2023. I admire artists who do 100 day challenges, who keep perfect daily journals, who do the same thing every day. A cruel aspect of being an artist online is that I’ll compare myself to these people and try marathon sprints of rigid creativity. I tried to do the 100 heads challenge and got to about 40 then fell off. On Instagram, I attempted and failed at Peachtober, twice! I intended to do a project where I painted 95 windows for an imagined exhibition called Windows 95, I did 35 of them. Of course I also attempted The Artists’ Way yet never got past Week 6 without burning out.
read: why we never finish "the artists' way"
But just because I am bad at finishing a challenge, doesn’t mean I am incapable of finishing a sketchbook, a painting, or a video. The work just happens in phases. The art finds its path to completion meandering through different cycles of inspiration, rest, and creation. Accepting that I’m inconsistent with energy levels [1] that wax and wane is a crucial part of how I practice self-compassion. The practice of being an artist is a marathon, not a sprint. When I teach in the classroom, I try to root my students in this mindset because it helps them avoid giving up [2].
plein air painting made on site in Big Basin State Park of a downed Coast Redwood and its chartreuse regenerative shoots. done in my sketchbook with pencil and gouache
Anything that you can do to remove pressure on yourself is crucial for maintaining creativity and not crashing out of art as a working class person. Jobs, family, bad days, and general life calamity will get in the way of our work. As life changes and evolves, our art and what we can afford to bring to it evolves. That is ok. The goal is not consistency, instead it’s persistence.
With persistence, we are no longer trapped by the Taylorist[3] hustle culture that late stage capitalist productivity bros love. We no longer need to try and perform consistency in the way it is supposed to look according to someone else. Consistency in a short little burst can be a tool of persistence, but that should not be what we aim for as creative humans. In this era where everything feels bad and “ai”[4] is attempting to steal the best part about making art, we need to double down into enjoying every step of the process. The process is the point. That looks different for each project, and at different phases of our life.
Consistency expects that we perform at the same level all the time, put out the same style of work each show, or post on the same day each week. Sure that works for brands with giant teams of people, but we are not brands, we’re beings. Routines can be useful for people who tend to like clarified systems that are unchanging, but those stem from a need for accommodations which change with our bodies. By embracing persistence instead we can accept and bring compassion to change and challenge. Persistence invites flexibility that helps us to deal with the grey area of life and art. The fallow periods are invitations to open ourselves up once again to how real creativity is seasonal.
Legacy TV of the pre-Netflix era worked in seasons for a reason. Quality takes time. The 24-hour-news-cycle of our current moment combined with the always-on nature of social media invites artists into a doom loop consistency myth, thinking they have to perform, dance, and work in the same way forever. I want you to know if you’re a disorganized chaotic goblin of an artist who flits from one thing to another your practice and work is valid, beautiful, and human. Keep going you wonderful human being, don’t let anyone tell you you’re less than for how you show up. Mr. Rogers agrees:
When we buy a bunch of new art supplies, or write new years resolutions it is super easy to get swept up in ambitious habit expectations
I fell into this myself this year when I bought a planner with the intention to start a new habit — drawing daily in this space every morning. It was an experiment and really an attempt at banning my bad habit of scrolling in bed upon waking. The practice was successful in getting me to put my phone permanently in another room to charge. But it revealed I prefer reading books with coffee, not having the pressure to perform my art right when I wake up.
the last spread I finished in my planner before making peace with myself that I couldn’t keep a daily habit, but that I plan to come back to it. the text reads “we must stop turning our anger & grief on each other! it’s time to build a life based on our dreams. rooted beyond whats currently possible, and focus on imagined worlds”
I kept this experimental habit [6] for about three weeks and then fell off. The item would get moved around on my growing to-do list and then I’d feel pressure to work on an entire week as a giant burst. This was no longer an experiment but an obligation. The shame welled up inside of me “will people think I’m a fraud for quitting this?” “Am I even a real artist?” “Why can’t I ever seem to be consistent?” So, it took looking at my life and art more holistically to realize all of these nasty thoughts were coming from places that would push my work to stop evolving, experimenting, and changing.
All that you touch You Change.
All that you Change Changes you.
The only lasting truth Is Change.
— Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
When we are hard on ourselves like I was, we let the defeatist stories and our inner critics run the show. We let insecurity and imposter syndrome keep us from just accepting that we are evolving and that’s entirely okay. The planner drawing practice was how I eased back in to my sketchbook after a very active period of making and writing music. Bursts of action and daily habits are simply bridges to get us to the next step and figure out what our body needs to make that possible.
This work and my practice as an artist is proof that I’m not consistent, I’m persistent. I’m following my creative impulses and seeing the different places they lead me. Reconnecting to projects and ideas on pause, and realizing the life of the artist is fundamentally different and more enriching than a productivity bro.
exploring the strange blue of mid-day sun shadows on the granite rocks of Joshua Tree National Park, and a flowering Joshua Tree in my sketchbook. both made with gouache.
thanks for reading. I’d love to see you in class with me soon. Until next time, stay creative and find your own ways to persistently bloom
the concept of Energy Menus transformed my life as a neurodivergent person. seeing each day through adaptation vs. a rigid, self-imposed structure was so helpful in recovering my music practice last fall. You can read the whole blog where I tracked my energy to recover this way of making art here.
if you are really struggling with your art and wanna throw in the towel, I did make a video about this last year that I think will support you!
Reading Enshittification by Cory Doctorow at the start of the year really made me investigate my own relationship to Taylorist terrible factory practices and what it means for me to try and be an efficient little worker, instead of just being an artist and letting the work flow through me. Social media especially puts this pressure to do it all and be productivity bros and I simply refuse to look at another damn stats dashboard telling me to post a long form video every week.
I’m putting air quotes around artificial intelligence here because I am feeling increasingly fed up about it lately. If you need to know why, I wrote an essay, and have an ai policy on my website.
I traded this practice for building yearly foundations which I talk about in this post and have found it far more helpful in letting my true goals evolve and emerge as the world thaws and the days get longer.
This year I’m trying to follow Mia’s experimental mindset way of looking at habits or resolutions we start and fall off of. This particular experiment didn’t work long term, and that’s okay!
