as small as a world and as large as alone, pervocracy: ursulavernon: perplexingly: ...

3:03am September 18, 2014

$pervocracy: ursulavernon: perplexingly: theotherwesley: ursulavernon: A friend requested I make this, and so here it is, and I offer it to anyone who needs it, with all the authority vested in me by whoever vests these things. Print it out if you need to. The best art advice ever given to me—ever, ever—was “Don’t be afraid to make bad art.” You will make a whole lot of crap in your time. Some will be truly awful and some will be merely mediocre. And that is totally normal and totally fine and for the love of little green apples, just keep going, because that’s the only way I know to get to the good stuff eventually. (I normally feel horribly egotistical mentioning my awards, but I think this counts as using that power for good.) :’D i feel better now WE HAD THIS FAILING EXERCISE AT SCHOOL - after you don’t succeed very well with arting, make your most successful pose and with your most successful voice say “I FAILED” \ o / Oh, wow! That sounds fantastic, actually. Wish my drawing class had that. (In ceramics, we could just ritually smash the piece, which was cathartic like whoa.) I’m going to file this with Immunity Cat and You Won The Game in my “it’s okay! you’re free!” folder. I love this. This is one reason I am no longer afraid to write bad poetry. Or mediocre poetry. Or poetry that isn’t bad but isn’t really good either. Or poetry where most people would call it good but I can see glaring holes between what it should be and what it is. Because for one thing it’s just okay. But for another thing, if you didn’t make the bad stuff you’d never make the good stuff. It can sometimes be twenty bad or mediocre poems for every really good one, but without the twenty bad or mediocre poems, the good one would never have happened. This is why I was so angry when another autistic person tried to tell me that all autistic poetry should be ~inspired~ in a way where you never have to actually work at writing it. Where it just comes from nowhere, into your head, and is therefore ~sacred~, whereas actually working at poetry, or worse, making a game of poetry-writing for fun, is just… crass or something. And honestly, however ~sacred~ that person considered their poetry, it had about the same ratio of bad to good that my poetry did. And also sometimes my poetry did happen on pure inspiration, and that’s fine, it’s just not fine to tell someone that’s the only real way to write poetry, or the only good way, or something. And to presume that if they ever write it in any other way, then their poetry is never inspired like that. But anyway, writing or drawing badly is okay, and so is every level of bad to good, and every combination of bad to good, and things that can’t even be classified on a scale from bad to good. And you don’t have to be ~inspired~ every time you write or draw. You can make it a game if you want, you can be serious if you want, you can work really really hard at it because it’s not ~inspired~, if you want. And the stuff that isn’t ~inspired~ can be just as good if not better than the stuff that is, and that’s okay too. There’s no one right place for art to come from.$

pervocracy:

ursulavernon:

perplexingly:

theotherwesley:

ursulavernon:

A friend requested I make this, and so here it is, and I offer it to anyone who needs it, with all the authority vested in me by whoever vests these things. Print it out if you need to.

The best art advice ever given to me—ever, ever—was “Don’t be afraid to make bad art.”

You will make a whole lot of crap in your time. Some will be truly awful and some will be merely mediocre. And that is totally normal and totally fine and for the love of little green apples, just keep going, because that’s the only way I know to get to the good stuff eventually.

(I normally feel horribly egotistical mentioning my awards, but I think this counts as using that power for good.)

:’D i feel better now

WE HAD THIS FAILING EXERCISE AT SCHOOL - after you don’t succeed very well with arting, make your most successful pose and with your most successful voice say “I FAILED” \ o /

Oh, wow! That sounds fantastic, actually. Wish my drawing class had that. (In ceramics, we could just ritually smash the piece, which was cathartic like whoa.)

I’m going to file this with Immunity Cat and You Won The Game in my “it’s okay! you’re free!” folder.

I love this.

This is one reason I am no longer afraid to write bad poetry. Or mediocre poetry. Or poetry that isn’t bad but isn’t really good either. Or poetry where most people would call it good but I can see glaring holes between what it should be and what it is.

Because for one thing it’s just okay.

But for another thing, if you didn’t make the bad stuff you’d never make the good stuff. It can sometimes be twenty bad or mediocre poems for every really good one, but without the twenty bad or mediocre poems, the good one would never have happened.

This is why I was so angry when another autistic person tried to tell me that all autistic poetry should be ~inspired~ in a way where you never have to actually work at writing it. Where it just comes from nowhere, into your head, and is therefore ~sacred~, whereas actually working at poetry, or worse, making a game of poetry-writing for fun, is just… crass or something.

And honestly, however ~sacred~ that person considered their poetry, it had about the same ratio of bad to good that my poetry did. And also sometimes my poetry did happen on pure inspiration, and that’s fine, it’s just not fine to tell someone that’s the only real way to write poetry, or the only good way, or something. And to presume that if they ever write it in any other way, then their poetry is never inspired like that.

But anyway, writing or drawing badly is okay, and so is every level of bad to good, and every combination of bad to good, and things that can’t even be classified on a scale from bad to good. And you don’t have to be ~inspired~ every time you write or draw. You can make it a game if you want, you can be serious if you want, you can work really really hard at it because it’s not ~inspired~, if you want. And the stuff that isn’t ~inspired~ can be just as good if not better than the stuff that is, and that’s okay too. There’s no one right place for art to come from.