You don’t suck – it’s just the messy middle!
Every artist’s journey is peppered with moments of brilliance and bouts of frustration. But there’s a particular phase in the creative process that can make even the most seasoned painters question their abilities – the notorious “messy middle.” It’s that pivotal point where everything goes to sh*t on your canvas and your confidence takes a serious hit.
In 2020, I found myself unwittingly entangled in this artistic purgatory while working on a painting ironically titled “The Helper.” Little did I know that this challenging experience would become my greatest teacher, guiding me through the tumultuous waters of creativity with a potent blend of patience, discernment, and intuition. Join me as I unravel the mysteries of the messy middle and share how embracing this chaotic phase can transform your artistic practice.
My inital thumbnail sketch of The Helper.
Per my sketch, the painting would be about a mischievous raven helping a Kachina woman to paint. It was meant to be a bit tongue in cheek because the raven was clearly getting more paint on itself than anywhere else.
Things were going swimmingly well as I laid in the background and painted in some of the foreground elements, including the raven. The lovely feeling of flow, however, vanished shoftly after I painted in the Kachina woman. Something was off.
The perspective and scale is off – Notice how small the female Kachina on the right is as compared to the raven.
With a sinking feeling, I realized the perspective of the Kachina woman to the raven was out of whack. I tried fixing the problem, by painting over her and making her bigger. That didn’t help, so I repainted the height of the table the raven was standing on. That didn’t work either. I kept trying to fix it by repainting an area and then removing it when it didn’t work.
While all this was going on, my inner mean girls were getting louder. “Your drawing skills suck. You’re not a real artist, a real artist would be able to fix this quickly. You should just give up before you totally embarrass yourself.” The harder I tried, the louder the voices got and the more frustrated and exasperated I became. My problem solving had sunk to desperation, rather than inspiration.
Step away and let it simmer.
Recognizing that I was only making things worse, I pushed the painting away. As I prepared to move the painting out of sight, I suddenly remembered a tip I learned from a local pastel artist, Helen Hazen. She she said she always propped her in-progress paintings in a visible location. Each time she walked by it, she noticed little things that she could fix or improve. Okay, I thought, I’ll try that. I rolled the easel to a place where I could see the painting as I went about my day.
I also used this time to review the painting and determine what I liked and didn’t like about the painting, by asking myself:
Do I like these colors
What don’t I like? What isn’t working?
What parts do I like?
What do I want to reduce or tone down?
What could be my next small step?
Navigating our way through the messy middle requires patience and faith. Patience because the intuitive painting and the creative process doesn’t work on a human timeline. Some paintings need time to sit and marinate, to give our mind and intuition time to noodle the challenges of the painting in an indirect, soft focus type of way.
Although it may feel as if little progress is being made, “simmering” is not sitting around doing nothing. It’s allowing our deductive reasoning and intuition to stew together to come up with solutions we may have not considered. When we give our paintings time to simmer, we allow the alchemy of the creative process to bring intuitive answers to us. And that requires patience.
Have a spare canvas to ramp up and cool down with
Another thing that helped me tremendously, was a tip from Nicholas Wilton. He suggested having a spare canvas to vent on. I did a variation of this by painting on a junk canvas before I worked on The Helper. I didn’t want to approach the canvas with fear and trepidation, so I started with the junk canvas first. On the junk canvas, I used colors that made me happy and I made big sweeping gestures, working quickly and spontaneously. When my energy felt light and bright, I resumed working on The Helper. Other times, when I lost my way, I used the junk canvas to paint my frustrations, pouncing my anger onto the surface and sometimes even writing swear words in big bold brush strokes. It felt so good to have a place to let the angst out!
Let go of expectations to make room for intuition
In my early sketch, the raven and the Kachina woman faced each other but it just wasn’t working. Ultimately, I had to let that go. My friend, Ravi Tangri, a life coach and avid West Coast Swing dancer, likes to say that manifesting is a lot like dancing.
“Sometimes you lead and sometimes you follow.”
In struggling through The Helper, I learned the intuitive painting process works that way too. The Helper taught me to loosen the grip I had on the intended outcome, so intuition could lead me to a better place.
Eventually, I was inspired to move the Kachina woman towards the foreground with her back towards the viewer as she faced the raven. Typically it’s not a good idea to have a back to the viewer but when I painted it that way, it felt right.
Embrace the Messy Middle – It Means Your Artist
I’ve listened to a lot of art related podcasts over the last few years and have learned, with much relief and delight, that I’m not alone. The messy middle is a real thing. Successful, thriving artists encounter the messy middle on a routine basis. I’ve also gone through many more messy middles myself and successfully come out on the other side. When you hit this stage, take heart! It doesn’t mean you suck, it just means you are an artist. And, with a little patience and faith, you will find your way through it too. In fact, I’ve come to think of the messy middle as similar to the chrysalis state of a butterfly – some things have to break down and become mush before they can transform into something beautiful.
“The Helper” taught me to let go and trust my intuition to guide me.
Here’s the message from The Helper:
“Magic happens we let go of expectations and open ourselves to new solutions.”
The Helper’s sacred message:
“Raven is stirring things up! We are invited to loosen our grip and adopt a playful spirit. Be open, experiment, and play. Muster the courage to move into and through the chaotic mess of a relationship, special project, or life event. When things are at their most jumbled, trust a breakthrough is about to occur. Keep moving forward. A higher wisdom is a work. There are gifts for you within the motley mess. Allow the gifts of chaos to emerge in all their glorious color.”