#2: reflecting on what’s holding me back
For the first time in a long time I had a good look at my Instagram. I would always put off going to my profile. I scrolled through all the artworks I was making in 2020 and 2021. I started my Instagram in 2020 and by 2021 I was part of a community, had good engagement and was posting regularly. This was never something I was anticipating when I started, I merely wanted a place to put the experiments I was doing with digital art. I was carefree about it, I didn’t overthink. I just shared what I was up to while the country was in lockdown.
For the last two years, I’ve been so dissatisfied with these artworks. I felt like I grew out of the style and I no longer felt like they were speaking to me. During these two years, we came out of lockdown and ‘normality’ returned. As outside life returned, office life also returned. I never had a huge passion for my day job, but prior to this I cared about milestones I was achieving and started working for a large tech company very early on in my career. However now I had experienced what true fulfilment felt like through my art. I could no longer be okay with the level of fulfilment I was getting in my job. I jumped from industry to industry, companies of varying sizes, trying to find, at the very least, a compromised version of a satisfying career. I thought to myself that once I find that I’ll start drawing again because my day job won’t drain me so much.
At the same time I also got engaged and married. I now had a wedding to plan and unsatisfiable in laws to satisfy. As happy as I was to be getting married to my best friend and companion of the last 6 years, being a South Asian bride was the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done. I tried so hard to please people with our wedding, it completely consumed my thoughts. I wanted everyone to be happy. I didn’t want a single complaint from anyone, which in hindsight I know is impossible. At this point I felt I just had to get through this, once the wedding is over I can focus on myself. We got married in June this year, it was a beautiful wedding and the majority of people couldn’t fault it. What no one warns you about is that it doesn’t stop once the wedding is over. The newly married phase is hard too. The past couple of months my partner and I have had to do some long overdue boundary setting. We’re really trying to force ourselves to change our people pleasing nature.
I’m also trying to let go of what’s holding me back in my art. I’m on week 6 of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way course which came into my life at the time I most needed it. I knew of the book before but never started it, I’m seeing that as a synchronicity and not a coincidence. Now when I look back at my illustrations from 2020 and 2021 I feel so proud of myself. I was someone who hadn’t drawn in at least 10 years and I just went for it. I really gave myself the freedom art needs. I was coming up with finished new pieces every couple of weeks. I haven’t really created a finished piece in two years now. But instead of looking at this as something I’ve lost, I know if I had it then I can get it back. I have a regular sketchbook and I’m exploring different mediums. I think I was very nearly there with the style I had and I’m working on developing that. Most importantly, I’ve learnt that there will never be perfect circumstances to make art. Waiting is futile so you might as well start.
