The Art of Learning: consistency.

Fancy Clancy - work in progress

With every single painting I do, there emerges a lesson, and I learn something new about myself. I’ve been taking notes.

I think one of the biggest mistakes of my life - and one that I hope you take into consideration with your own children as you raise them to be productive, creative adults, is that I didn’t pay enough attention to process. And here’s the thing, though— for those of you who are like me and you have ADHD, paying attention to detail, and getting into the weeds of the HOW is extremely difficult, when you’re most concerned with the WHAT that you get when you’re finished. I think I was way too goal oriented. But now, as I put practice to my creativity, I’m also teaching myself to get into the weeds of the HOW.

Working on this piece this morning, I just realized why I have historically underperformed (in grade school, jobs, in art pieces and musical endeavors, in keeping my house clean…). I think I’ve always been scared of being expected to be consistent. My brain does not allow me to be consistent. As I put paintbrush to paper this morning, and recognized my brain saying, “Don’t spend too much time on that area of the painting; you might be obligated to do the same quality later…”, I took note.

The truth is, with this brain, there’s no telling if it will be the same quality as before. There’s a possibility it will be even better. But whatever the outcome, this process belongs to me. I am the artist.

Lesson from today’s painting session: don’t be afraid of success now just because you might not win later.

-Ashley