A Giggle and a Truth-bomb

Something surprising and hilarious happened in my studio and I have to tell you all about it because it delivered me a perfectly-timed and much-needed truth-bomb, and it’s all still giving me the giggles…

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So we had a service provider in our home this week. When they walked through my studio, they stopped and remarked, “Oh wow! This is STUNNING! Who’s the artist?”

“Oh, yes. Cath’s an artist,” responded Andy.

I stood quietly. Confused.

Because I had just cleaned my studio, and wrapped and packed away all my completed artworks. My easel, which they were looking and enthusiastically pointing at, was empty.

The penny was still busy dropping for me when we moved on to the living room together and Andy pointed at one of my framed artworks hanging on our wall. “This is Cath’s work,” he said.

“Oh wow, it’s so… different to the other one,” They responded, nonplussed.

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So the next time you’re stuck in perfectionism, tangled up in ideas of how things “should” be done, working hard to unlearn the uptight, over-functioning behaviour that life trained you into, or feeling inadequate about your creations (or yourself), remember this story. Try new things, break the rules, make mistakes and messes, suck at it and do it anyway if it gives you joy. Because someone out there will love the mess you discard and the beauty you discount (in your art or yourself) even more than everything you’re should-ing yourself about and working so damn hard to create/ be/ do so “perfectly.”