Ugly Art as Perfectionist Therapy

A little over a year ago, I’d reached a breaking point. The pandemic brought my college education to a screeching halt, and in the quietness that followed, I began to realize just how disconnected I was from my own creativity. I had 30,000 words written for a novel that I couldn’t bear to touch anymore, I wasn’t writing poetry at all, I hadn’t written music in years, and my sketchbook was constantly sitting untouched and nearly empty. I was frustrated with myself all the time. I got nothing done, and anytime I tried, I couldn’t bring myself to just start.

Around the time that quarantine began, I made an important revelation. For much of my adolescence and carrying on into my early adulthood, I’d been stuck in a destructive habit of abandoning half-finished creative projects. I’d start a painting and abandon it halfway through when the product wasn’t living up to what I had pictured. I’d start recording a song, sometimes working on it for hours or days before I got frustrated and deleted all my progress when it didn’t sound the same coming through the speakers as it did resonating in my head. It took me a while to diagnose the problem as perfectionism, because I’d never made anything I saw as being perfect. But I saw a blank page as being already perfect by itself, and anytime I made a mark on it, that flawless empty page was instantly ruined.

Perfectionism isn’t always seen as a genuine problem; before I recognized that I was suffering from it myself, I thought of it as the go-to answer when someone asks what your greatest weakness is in a job interview. What I’d never considered before then is just how much of an impact it can have on your ability to motivate yourself to finish projects. Creative perfectionists cannot trust the process; if an unfinished project doesn’t already meet your expectations, many will discard it long before it has the chance to reach its full potential. And for many creative people (including me), your personal happiness is often contingent on how much you’re creating at any given time. And when your personal happiness and sense of fulfilment depends on whether you’re creating, that kind of oppressive perfectionism quickly becomes a disease, a seemingly insurmountable roadblock separating you from creative progress, and even inner peace. It can snowball into a genuinely harmful mental health problem, to the point that you become completely paralyzed by it.

In my case, I knew I had to actively do something to get me out of my rut, to build my patience and break through my mental block. So I decided that instead of trying to make beautiful and irreproachable works of art, I would instead make a simple commitment to creating things - not beautiful things. Just things. Given the physicality and endless possibilities of visual art, I chose to practice making ugly art in my sketchbook. And at first, this really brought the poison bubbling to the surface. I was so deep in my perfectionist mindset that I had to force the chaos at first. I tested out creative liberation by leaving a sketch unfinished, or blindly smearing paint on a page with no clue how it would look when it dried.

And with time, it worked! It wasn’t long before the dam burst. My first sketchbook took about four years for me to fill; my second one took just under six months. Nowadays, I giddily glue in receipts, I slather the pages in watercolors that make the paper curl. In my second sketchbook, I had my family and friends wreak havoc; they doodled stick figures, stapled in wine-soaked paper towels, and even hand-sewed napkins onto the pages. Now I actively seek out materials that I think are utterly hideous, like duct tape and highlighters, for the purpose of putting them into my sketchbook to see if I can turn them into something I like. And as crazy as it may sound, I’ve already noticed a difference in the way I approach any creative endeavor.

In retrospect, the reason why seems obvious. The best art you’re capable of making won’t come out of you unless you feel free enough to make it first. A year ago, I felt so harshly confined by my own lofty standards, I wasn’t free enough to make much of anything at all. Now, I’ve reached a much different and less stressful place with my art. I lay my sketchbook facedown in pools of discarded acrylic paint, I fasten beaded safety pins to the paper. I’m enjoying the process of making art more than I ever have before, and the art itself feels more personal. More real.

I haven’t been immune to the urge to learn new skills and explore new hobbies through quarantine; around the same time I started letting the chaotic new art style fill my sketchbooks, I started learning to play the guitar, produce my own music at home, and bake my own bread; and the lessons I’ve learned within the pages of my sketchbook extend far beyond its binding. When you pick up a new skill, you’re not just learning how to succeed at it; you’re also learning how to make new mistakes. Over the last year, I’ve fumbled on the guitar and heard dead strings, I’ve produced songs that just sound like noise, I’ve made loaves of bread so hard and dense that they were completely inedible. And I really believe that ugly art is the only reason I’ve gotten as far as I have.

And you know what? I think it’s finally perfect.