One day, while scrolling through Threads, I came across a post from an artist saying that most of her real-life "friends" don't even engage with her art account at all, which left her feeling hurt. Many people in the comments shared similar experiences.
For me, this is also true.
Becoming a creator is a difficult journey. You face pressures including personal growth, making money, and gaining attention and being scrutinized. This Thread post made me want to discuss the last type of pressure, as well as 3 harsh truths that I believe must be accepted if you want to grow.
Photo by Prateek Katyal
I. Accept that real-life friends may not like your creations
Many people don't naturally become artists because they grew up in an artistic environment. More often, they were the outliers in their environment from a young age, feeling out of place and longing for their true selves to be seen and accepted.
When you start creating, you remain that outlier among your friends, because they have their own interests and concerns, and won't naturally become interested in art.
Becoming a creator means accepting many facts, one of which is that your friends in real life (perhaps most of them) may not like your content, or be completely uninterested, and may not understand you. Your artistic talent holds no benefit for them, so they don't engage. You're always walking a different path, and many people would prefer you to be ordinary and well-behaved like them.
This is just a fact that needs to be accepted, even though it indeed hurts. But you can't change others; you can only find your own way out. Your success doesn't just count on people being nice. You need to find partners and an audience for your creations.
II. Accept that you need to seek an audience in a broader world
Artists can't expect to develop a community from their real-life friends and family.
Just as there are no shortcuts to creating good work, there are no shortcuts to finding your audience.
Having people around you doesn't mean they are your audience. In this world, there's a small portion of people who like ART, only a small part of them will like YOUR ART, and only a small part of that small portion will eventually PAY for your designs or merchandise.
If you don't try more ways to reach them, you won't meet them.
In this era, creating art is something that requires entrepreneurship.
Your work and your image are products, and you need to learn and master marketing skills to sell these products.
Both creation and marketing require a lot of mental energy and time. It’s easy to burn out if you want to do them all at the same them all by yourself.
When I first started drawing, I would also post on social media or in communities, of course I had little feedback. I realized there was still so much to learn. So I chose to put most of my effort into the thing with the highest uncertainty: improving my art skills. During this time, I gained more business skills and insights through full-time work. Only when I felt I was gradually developing a style did I start putting my spare mental energy into marketing myself.
III. Stop fearing being disliked or rejected
People not liking your work is a matter of probability; it will never be zero at any time.
However, for artists, this is a bit more cruel because we need to face more directly the reality of how much we are liked, and in many cases, the likes we get are indeed related to our commercial value.
The only action I take is to focus more on creation, concentrating my attention on the most valuable things.
One emotion that motivates me to create is remembering countless times in my growth process when I was deeply moved by a piece of art. I have a strong motivation to create works that can touch people's hearts in the same way, and apart from continuously improving creativity and skills, I have no other path to achieve this.
I put the love and genuine emotions I feel into my works, and through a large amount of creation, I make them better conveyed. Only in this way is it possible to establish a true emotional connection with the audience and gain more sincere likes.
If enough people like you, interacting with them and continuing to create for them will occupy a large portion of your attention. You'll hardly notice which specific person doesn't like you. When you're conveying a lot of love every day and gaining more and more acceptance, you can be more at ease with rejection.
Last but not least, don't fake your engagement.
There's no short cut to win love.
Focus. Be brave. And accept the challenges.
This is Letter 10 of the LazyCreator weekly newsletter.
I’m an illustrator and content creator. I share my creative journey in art and content creation through this newsletter.
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