S3 E68: Why Should You Share Your Art?

Podcast

Nov 4

Sharing your art can be nerve-wracking, but it can also be really fun! I talk about some common reasons you might hesitate to share, many great reasons to share, and provide encouragement to make it easier to do. If there's a creative project that you've been on the fence about sharing, I hope this episode gives you the courage to step up and do it!

RESOURCES MENTIONED

S3 E43: When Can You Call Yourself an Artist?
S3 E66: Megan Ihnen on Cultivating Creative Community
A fun animation of the Ira Glass quote about “The Gap” (not the store)
Tom Waits quote about kids making tons of art

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Hello and welcome to episode 68 of Being A Whole Person! Thank you very much for bearing with me in the last episode when I had to air a rerun. I wanted to walk my talk and actually take something off my plate while things were feeling extra busy. And hopefully if you need an example of someone else doing that, it helped you too. But today I'm back with a new episode and I'm going to talk about sharing your work. But first, a couple announcements.
Number one: Creative Show and Tell is back! I used to have it as part of the Compassionate Creativity Club membership, which is on pause right now, but I really want to do a Show and Tell again. And since I have more time in my schedule in November, I'm going to do a free one. It's open to everybody. So this is Thursday, November 17 from 2-3:30PM Pacific, and you can just come and share whatever thing you're working on, even if it's not finished, or especially if it's not finished, because oftentimes we have opportunities to share things in a more formal environment where you feel like this needs to be very polished and put together.
This is not one of those times. You can come and be like, "I knitted half of a row of something." I mean, you probably have done more than that, but you can come and show literally any amount of work. The in-progress sharing is especially nice, because you can ask for feedback from the other folks there. You can say what kind of feedback you're looking for, whether you want some general feedback or like, just on the colors you used, but not on other things. Whatever it is, you can come and request that kind of feedback. You can say, "I only want encouragement today," totally cool. And the other times we've done this, it's just been really fun to get together and chat about what we're doing and just have an opportunity to be social with other fellow artists. So if that sounds good to you, I highly encourage you to sign up. It's totally free to join, and I would love to see you there. Link is in the show notes for that.
So why should you share your work? Caveat: I'm not trying to "should" you by saying "should" in this question. Of course you get to decide whether you want to share your work or not. That's why I framed it as a question rather than a "why you should share your art and creative work." But there are a lot of reasons why sharing your work is really rewarding and appealing, and I'm going to talk about those today, along with some encouragement if you find sharing your work to be a little bit scary.
And spoiler, that keeps happening. Even if you're not new at sharing your work, there are times when it might be suddenly scary. If it's the first time or the fiftieth time that you have shared, totally normal. Totally human. Of course, you don't have to share your work. You might be totally satisfied by having your art practice be a private thing, and that's great. But even if that's you, listen on, you might find some reasons that you do actually want to share your work with someone.
So first I'll talk about why you might not want to share your work. I think the number one reason for most of us is vulnerability. You might be questioning, "Is this good enough to share?" You might feel ashamed because you think it's not good enough. You might be afraid of what other people will say or think of you. And that is all so normal.
Our brains want to keep us safe, and in pretty much every situation it wants to be in control and make sure that we survive, right? Like, that's great, but the more primitive parts of our brain can't actually distinguish very well between a grave threat and a smaller one, like being vulnerable in sharing something like this.
So, knowing that, you could say to yourself, "I'm feeling really anxious about this. Wow, my brain is working really hard to keep me safe right now. Thanks, brain, for doing your job." I find that really helpful to acknowledge anytime I'm feeling anxious about something. Those of us who work in performance mediums are probably really familiar with performance anxiety at one time or another.
I am one of those people for sure. I was always so nervous to perform in piano recitals growing up, and for some reason I made myself keep doing it because it felt like something that was a culmination of an experience, and it felt like something that I should be able to do. Again, that's a "should", maybe that's a different conversation. But it is extremely relatable to have some kind of performance anxiety, whether you're performing something live in person or whether you're just sticking it up on a wall or on the Internet.
If you are someone who has had a private, secret art practice and you haven't told anyone about it because it feels a little bit scary to own this identity, I talk about this more in Episode 43, called When Can You Call Yourself An Artist?, about my journey to feeling comfortable with calling myself a composer, and you might find some encouragement there too.
Just know that you might have to rip off the Band-Aid, so to speak. It might feel terrible before it feels better, like you feel really scared because it's the first time, because your brain doesn't have evidence yet that you're going to be okay despite this harrowing situation, so. Sometimes you just have to do the thing in order to show your brain, "Oh yeah, I survived, and oh, maybe this was actually really great because I got some great feedback or some great encouragement."
An example for me, this is not an art related example, but I have a real phobia of all things medical involving puncturing of skin, you know, blood draws, needles, all of these things. And of course once we entered the era of COVID shots, that was a source of anxiety for me. I was like, "Well, I know I want to get this vaccine, but this makes me really anxious," and I did it anyway. I didn't die, I didn't pass out, and I consider that a victory. And then the next time, it was much easier because my brain had this evidence, somewhat recent evidence, that yes, I did survive this experience. I can go do it again.
Another variation on this not wanting to share is resisting recognition or validation, because you feel like you shouldn't need any recognition from outside, it should all come from inside, and I see you there for sure. It's not necessarily healthy to depend on outer feedback as your sole source of fuel for your creative practice. You want it to come from inward as well, but there is a great middle ground you can strike where you're feeling nourished by feedback and encouragement, but you're not dependent on it for your sense of self worth or your sense of well-being. So you can find a way to enjoy that compliment from somebody else, but also be able to look inward for your own internal recognition.
It's really normal to be afraid of negative feedback. We're conditioned to want to be liked, because in olden times, when people lived in a village, you know, that community was your support system, and if you became so unlikable that you were cast out of the community, you no longer belonged to that community, you would not necessarily have access to food, or lots of resources that you need to survive. So even though most of us are not in this situation anymore, that thread still runs through our brains, and we want to be liked for deeper reasons than just vanity, or whatever types of self criticisms might come up for you around needing support or some kind of positive feedback.
So that's a lot about why you might not want to share your work, mostly because it's scary, but there are a lot of amazing reasons why you might want to share your work.
Sharing your message, your perspective, your values. Sharing your true self, your soul, with the world as a form of self-expression. Having a kind of spiritual connection and deeper connection with people through that art, more of a deeper understanding than just kind of a surface level encounter. Helping other people who will enjoy it, or find meaning in it and find ways to understand themselves better. Recognition feels good and there is nothing wrong with that, as we just discussed.
Getting people to buy your work, which has maybe some psychological things wrapped up in it, but also, nothing wrong with that, and it's essential, actually, if you're trying to make your career from art. That involves making friends with self promotion in some way or another. I think the best kind of self promotion involves just sharing yourself, sharing your story, sharing with the world.
Inspiring others is a great reason to share - bravery is contagious! If you see a friend of yours do an open mic night and you've always wanted to do that, you might be like, "They did it, hmm, maybe this is possible after all." So you can be that example for somebody else, and that ripple can just keep spreading, which is really cool.
You can invite other people to share their work with you, so that you have a communal experience with it. Maybe you're sharing because you want feedback. You want to learn from other people who have done the same thing and might tell you about it. Maybe you just want to connect with like minded fellow artists with common interests, and sharing your work, say, on Instagram is a way to do that.
Also, the more you share, the more people know who you are, the more they know what you're about. and the more likely they are to think of you when that cool opportunity or collaboration comes up. We talked about this in Episode 66 with Megan Ihnen, and I think that is an amazing reason to share your work.
You might resonate with many of these reasons to share. Maybe some of them stand out more than others, but perhaps some bells were going off in your mind when I read through some of those things. So you might be thinking, “Cool, there's a lot of good reasons to share, but it's still scary. What do I do with that?”
If you're questioning whether your thing is good enough to share, I invite you to question this idea of "good enough", like, what does that actually mean? Is it actually dangerous to share your work, or is it actually going to be as terrible of a conclusion as you think? You can follow that worst case scenario and perhaps laugh at some of the things that your brain comes up with to keep you from doing a so-called "risky" thing.
Whenever I'm pondering the idea of "good enough", I also always think of this Ira Glass quote called "The Gap", where he talks about how, when you first start making things, your taste outweighs your ability because you've consumed a lot of art. You know what you like, your taste is for very developed things and if you're new, then what you're making probably isn't as developed, or interesting, or desirable, or insert your adjective here, as those people.
You might be drawing some of those comparisons, and the antidote to that is just to make a lot of stuff, because the more you make, the more good stuff you'll make. Of course, "good" is very subjective, but I'm saying "good", like good means you like it, if it's good for you. And likewise, the more you share your work, the more good experiences you'll have with it, even if some of them are more negative.
So how do we make it easier to get comfortable with sharing our work? I always say, start small. That's my advice with so many different things, and it works here too. Maybe "start small" means just sharing a tiny bit of something, like a small snippet, or just a peek at one piece of work. Maybe it means sharing with a trusted friend first, or whatever makes a more comfortable environment for you.
When you're nervous about sharing, you can have reminders of feeling safe and supported. You can create an actual physical environment that's more comfortable when you're not feeling as brave or energetic. For instance, I'm wearing a robe right now to record this podcast. It's mid afternoon. I'm doing it because it feels good and it feels cozy, and this isn't something where I have to get up in front of a bunch of people. But there is an element of performance in recording a podcast, and sometimes I feel a little resistance before I sit down. So, today, robe. Great.
You can do other things to calm your nervous system before you do it. You can also set your compass toward fun. How can you make it fun to share? How can you connect with your inner child who just loved to make stuff again and again without worrying about that "good enough" idea, or even what would happen to your creation after you made it? You probably just made hundreds of drawings and didn't really care because you would just go make another one. There's a Tom Waits quote about that, but I didn't look it up before recording. It's basically that idea that the spirit of kids making stuff is so great to tap into.
Also, remind yourself, you can do something while you're scared. Your brain will tell you, "No. This is scary. I can't do it," but it is totally possible to do something while we feel scared, nervous, anxious. And I'm living proof of that as someone who manages anxiety, perhaps you are, too. We get to practice dealing with that discomfort every time we go ahead and try it anyway.
You can also just trick your future self by committing to something in the future in a moment when you're feeling brave in the present. The first time that I ever shared one of my compositions with other composers was one of these examples. I talked about this in Episode 43 in more detail, but basically I signed up for this composer night in Saint Paul, where I used to live, and I did the sign-up on a day when I was like, "Alright, let's do this, I'm feeling good." And when the day came, did I want to run away and not go? Absolutely, but I made myself go anyway, even though my brain was really kicking and screaming through it.
It also helps that this was a friendly environment, because I had actually performed something at one of these composer nights with my trio before, because our cellist had written a piece and we were presenting it as a trio. So I was like, "Okay, I've been in this room before, I've been with some of these people." It felt good. They were friendly, you know? That was a good place for me to start sharing, and it really surpassed my expectations of what it could be like. I was met with lots of support, lots of encouragement, more than I expected since I was a pretty new composer, or new to owning the label of composer.
Just know that you will have varying levels of positive energy and bravery around sharing, and that doesn't change its worthiness, even though that's how you might see it at different times. Our brains can be very fickle.
So if there's something that you've been on the fence about sharing, I hope that this episode has given you a bit of courage to step up and do it, whether that's sharing on your social media or some kind of blog or website, some kind of online community that you belong to. Maybe an in person community, maybe an open mic of some kind.
Maybe you want to form some kind of critique group with friends. My mom is a visual artist and she has had this art critique group for decades. It's a small group of women that get together and talk about art together. And maybe you have a few friends who would want to do that with you.
You can also join us at Creative Show and Tell to come and show off what you're working on. Like I said earlier, absolutely encouraged to share works in progress that are not finished, because why not? It's great to come and show where you are so far. If you're stuck on something, you can ask for feedback that might help you to the next step. That definitely happened at past Show and Tells, but overall it's just a fun time to get together, share work, and chat with fellow artists and encourage each other, which is one of my very favorite parts of doing this creative coaching work.
So I hope you can join us for that and I'm happy to be back with a new episode, and more to come! As always, I so appreciate you joining me here and being part of my community. Thanks for listening, and wishing you the best in your creative pursuits! See you next time.