Try To Do It Badly

Stephanie gets a tarot reading. One of the invitations that comes up: go buy some paint and a canvas and see what happens.

She's never really been drawn to painting. But she goes to the art supply store, grabs the cheapest smallest canvas she can find, and gives herself one instruction: try to do it badly.

What she figures out - about expression, about pressure, about what it actually feels like to be done - turns out to be the whole point. And a pretty good note to end a season on.

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 The Tarot Reading
• 01:15 Why Paint Specifically
• 02:28 Try To Do It Badly
• 03:10 Flow State
• 04:05 I'm Done
• 05:18 Turning It On Its Side
• 06:10 The Freedom To Create Without Pressure
• 06:45 Until Next Time

Transcript

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Hello, I'm Stephanie Arapian, and this is the Centered Creator Podcast. I tell stories from my creative life, my travels, my many questionable decisions, and what I've learned about being human along the way. This one's about a tarot reading, a five by seven canvas, and why the best creative advice I got all year was to try to make the worst painting ever. So I recently gave myself the gift of a tarot reading. I had a lot of fun and it was very interesting. And one of the invitations that came up was a suggestion to play with some canvas and paint and a brush. And that was interesting to me, and I was open to it. And I have done some paint and sip nights before, some time ago. It was a nice bonding activity between my mom and sister and I. I've done a couple of pencil sketches here and there. I even have some coloring books, but I wasn't quite sure where this impulse to paint would be coming from. It didn't feel like I need to go do this thing, but it was an invitation, and I'm like, sure, why not? I'll play. Something is leading me to maybe doing that. I was a bit puzzled as to why it was painting. I have never been specifically drawn to it before, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the difference between the coloring books or even a paint and sip night is because there's lines. There are suggestions of shapes or someone teaching you what image you're trying to create. And I think the whole point of that and the suggestion was the freeform nature of it. If I have lines, I feel like there needs to be a completed picture or there is a finished product that I am aiming towards. And that was the opposite of the goal. So, okay, I get why it's the paint on canvas now. And I started seeing dark greens and browns, and I don't know, I was very in an earthy mood as I'm wandering up to the art supply store and I grab my brushes and I grab a basic set of paints and some canvas, like a five by seven stretched canvas that's over plywood, and it was easy and cheap and small, so I was not feeling intimidated by trying to create a masterpiece. I am not going to become Picasso. And a suggestion that came up that was really nice was try to do it badly. Just go and make the worst painting ever. And so eventually, a couple days later, I'm opening my new purchases. All right, let's try it. Put on some music, start playing with the paint brushes. Here's my brown and green that I've been thinking of. And then there's some yellow and some blue and some interesting colors. And then I was playing with the brushes. What do these brushes do? What does that do? And just getting very zen. I have a tendency to do this, especially when I'm focused and I'm being drawn into a creative activity, that I reach kind of a flow state. I get a little zen, and it's kind of hard to talk to me during a movie because I am all in on the story. Like, no. Maybe if I really love you. I'm a person that focuses on the thing in front of me. So I'm into the story. I'm into the art. And I'm playing with the canvas and I'm getting that expression and energy out. And what was interesting to me, it was the first time to me that I realized I was done. That there was a difference between the painting being finished and my energy being expressed. It feels weird to say, but there was a very definite feeling of, oh, I am done now. I don't need to do more. Could I have played with it? Maybe. Would that probably have ruined it? Yeah, also maybe. But there wasn't anything to ruin. Like, okay, I got that out, and I don't need to do more, which was a new flavor of thought for me. And that I was realizing was the whole point. I needed that flow state of expression without the pressure to perform, to have a product to be able to finish the thing because it didn't need to be finished. It didn't need to be a product to sell. And then I set the painting aside to dry, and I went about my day and did some other things. I think I did laundry and a couple other bits on the computer. And coming back to it after dinner, and it's dried now. And I look at it, okay, this is not bad. I don't hate it. It just was an expression. And then I actually turned it on its side in more of a landscape, horizontal shape. And I'm like, oh, I quite like that. That looks kind of cool and interesting. It's not what I was expecting. Maybe I was already imagining something that was more realistic, or maybe I was subconsciously trying to create a realistic portrait of color and how my universe works. And then I realized by turning it on its side, it wasn't. Oh. It's like looking at if the sky was green instead of blue, and if the grass was blue instead of green, and if this were that. And of course, I realized that was me playing with the what-ifs that I am in love with. But that was a pressure-free expression of my energy. And then I realized why that I've been invited to do that. And now I'm so happy that I did, and I'm recognizing that I need more space for that in my life. The freedom to create without pressure and be happy with the results, whatever they are. Until next time, take care.