Procrastination....

I deliberately decided to stay home today (except for a quick food shopping trip) because I want to work on art work scans and get something on Etsy and Artfire.  So far not so good.  I am finding excuses to not work--do laundry, sort out materials for workshops, play with the cats, play on the Internet doing spurious research.

I think it's fear.  Even though I'm not afraid to put myself out there as an artist with a severe mental illness, I think I'm afraid to put myself out there--in a quasi-retail setting--as an artist.  Maybe it's because deep down I am still plagued by the feeling of not being any good.  That sooner or later someone will tell me that I don't have any talent.  That I'm masquerading.

I think it's a feeling a lot of artists have actually.  I think many of us are afraid to put ourselves out there.  We are ultra-sensitive to criticism, to being rejected.  In a lot of ways, I have erected a wall--well, a short one--to protect me from feeling devastated by criticism from others.  But I also sense that the wall is not built very strongly.  That, like the proverbial houses built by two of the Three Little Pigs, the wall will collapse with the least little puff of criticism from the Big Bad Critic.

And to reinforce that wall I even have a postcard on my refrigerator, bought from the RISD Store in Providence, that basically says that there'll always be someone who loves my work and someone who hates it--GET USED TO IT.

Could be also that I have become used to accolades from those around me who love the stuff I do.  At the same time, though, I secretly believe that my fans are too easily impressed.

For me, though, I know where a lot of this self-doubt comes from.  When growing up, and later as an adult, my efforts at writing and art were often ridiculed by my father, even as he would say nice things about my work to others.  At home, though, what I did was never good enough.  That pattern continued for decades and his words still linger in my mind.  

It'll take time to break through the self-doubt.  Don't know if I'll ever really get rid of all of it.

But I know I have to stop this procrastination.  And get with the program.  In the words of the immortal Nike slogan, "JUST DO IT."  Already.