When your vision exceeds your skill

When I had just started, I hated what I was doing. I hated what I was creating. My vision was way bigger than my actual skill.

I feel many artists can relate to this feeling. There will be a long period in which you are not at the level you want to be at. In German, we have a proverb for that: “Es ist noch kein Meister vom Himmel gefallen.” This means something along the lines of: “No one is born a master.”

We all have to start somewhere, and we all have to work on our craft. No matter if you do sports, learn an instrument, draw, write, act, or sing… We are all in this together. And yet, I feel like society doesn’t grant us a lot of space to try and fail. I feel like it is expected of us to be flawless. They make us feel embarrassed for being amateurs, even though that is part of the process and something that can be enjoyed as well.

Being a beginner enables you to discover and develop your craft like no other phase in your life can. There is a certain hunger and playfulness that only beginners have. You have not found your signature style yet, and people do not place expectations on your craft. You are alone with it, and that might be the best place to be. We are supposed to be hunting after metrics and external validation, and your craft can easily be subconsciously affected by it. But in your beginner years, you have the freedom to try out different approaches and develop your skill. Instead of wishing those years away as fast as possible, start embracing them. Those are the years you will want to look back on. “Remember when I believed in my craft when no one else did?” “Remember when I was just starting to refine this skill?” “Remember how fun it was not knowing if it would all work out?”

But you will only reach this place if you create the art. There is no greater tragedy than an artist suppressing their desire to create because they are afraid of looking stupid or their art not living up to their expectations. It is okay to make art while recognizing it is not yet like the vision you had for it. It is okay to create incomplete, imperfect, and chaotic art. I even encourage you to do so. It is the purest art an artist can make. It shows the artist’s heart without any superficial polishing.

And you are allowed to put this work out into the world. There is this misconception that we are only allowed to put things out there if they have been perfected—the final product, the result of years of refinement. I don’t know about you, but I am sick of perfection. I am sick of seeing it, and I am sick of trying to accomplish it. I would love to see more amateurs taking their first wobbly steps; I want to see how they figure it out. I want to see raw, real art instead of art that got worked over a thousand times by different people. I want to see art people make when they don’t have any budget. I want to see how they create with what they have. So please, put your work out there before it is perfect, because that’s just a sign you have waited too long.

I was scared that when I put my imperfect work out there, the people from my small village would call me a pretender. I was afraid that I would let people down whom I did not even know. I was afraid of showing myself and my art exactly as it was at the moment. I was not owning up to it, looking down on it through the lens of other people. But what about my own feelings toward it? Yes, it might not be perfect, but I really enjoyed making it. Yes, I hope to improve a lot more in the future, but does that mean I have to erase all my previous attempts? Is all that is left at the end only perfection? What about my journey, my evolution? Will those footsteps be erased as well? Is it embarrassing to try? To believe in something and to want to improve? Is it embarrassing to start? Is it embarrassing to do something for the first time? 

Often, we compare our work to the work of someone who has been doing it for years. They made their first wobbly steps a long time ago. They have already created the imperfect art you are currently avoiding. You are comparing the art you make right now to the art you will be able to make in ten years’ time. But someone who can’t focus on the art right in front of them will never make it to those ten years.

By Jyuu Anna 

Email: jyuuanna@gmail.com

Substack: @jyuuanna

Socials: @jyuuanna