Finding Your Style: How Artists Can Connect With Themselves and their Audience
Megan Carty
During my journey of becoming a full time abstract painter, I found it took years to find my own unique voice as an artist. I was so influenced by what other artists were making and found myself floundering and trying so many different things. Nothing felt right and I always felt so rudderless and confused. I had the SKILLS I needed, but I didn’t feel like I was connecting with my own work or with others. It got very depressing.
Over time, I finally stopped looking at what others were doing and started to let myself get my own ideas and express them as I felt called. I did what FELT GOOD in my body. I focused on feeling loose, free, and relaxed. I wanted to ENJOY making my work. I wanted it to feel like MINE. I finally started making work that felt cohesive, fun, unique, and expressive. Authentically MINE! What made things different? What turned the tide?
Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about my paintings and how they come to exist. There is a definite channeling with an energy…some call it Spirit, The Holy Spirit, The Universe, Source, The Muse, our Guides. Whatever you call it, I feel it and intuitively translate and express what shows up in my brain. It’s a “Great Mystery” and a great act of Faith to listen to this information, translate it, and then share it for others to connect with; thus giving them space for their OWN spiritual moments.
I like to call that crucial process the Creative Circle of Inspiration.
It is all about a cycle of ACTION and looks something like this:
Wanting: This is an invisible internal yearning to create. When we ignore the call of yearning, we become anxious, unfulfilled, depressed, sad, and ill. The yearning is there as a special calling that MUST be answered.
Listening: You actively are mindful to hear inspiration come to you on a walk or drive. Perhaps during a meditation or while in the shower an idea pops up. Maybe you are brainstorming with a sketchbook and pen and the ideas flow to you. These ideas are meant for you!
Responding as making/translating: You hear the call of inspiration and you take the ideas you’ve been given and turn them into something tangible through research and sketches and the actual creation of the THING. It’s an evolving process that can involve experimentation, time, attempts, and effort.
Sharing: This is the step where you release your best finished work into the world for others to enjoy. Perhaps you share through a music site, or a gallery, or on social media. Sharing invites others to interact with our vision and our ideas. It’s crucial to the Circle of Inspiration.
Connecting: This becomes the spark of inspiration that occurs when others understand, value, and resonate with what you have made. It will not happen with everyone as it’s a special moment not meant for all. This almost “chemical” reaction starts the Creative Circle of Inspiration with a NEW person. And thus the process continues on and on like a spiritual game of telephone.
This is why creating custom commissions/works for hire for other people can be so challenging. It’s why copying other artists feels so empty. We are not entering our Creative Circle. We are translating the vision FOR SOMEONE ELSE’S Circle of Inspiration…our own wanting or vision is absent. We are not doing our own listening or connecting. We cannot really SHARE as it’s not our own unique vision. It’s not a mutual connection, and that MUTUAL connection is what artists are addicted to and NEED to feel fulfilled. The incomplete creative circle leaves the artist back at step one in a state of wanting.
If you feel stuck in your creative practice or feel lost and unfulfilled, look back at this list to see what steps might be missing from YOUR Creative Circle of Inspiration. You very might well be able to figure out what needs to be addressed.