Give your old art some love

Over the years I’ve been witnessing a trend where artists pull out old sketchbooks and artwork from previous years, perhaps even back to their childhood, then proceed to disparage their past works, bemoaning how awful they were, how rushed, un-refined, un-skilled, etc.

I’ve watched a couple of these on YouTube and I felt disheartened watching them. If I see one of these pop up in my feed now, I ignore it. I’m not going to name names here, as I don’t want this to turn into what could be construed as a personal attack against someone, who, likely at the time, just felt like they were doing something fun or that would get picked up by social media’s algorithms. But do a search and you’ll sure enough find someone out there giving their old artwork a public thrashing.

This behavior bothers me, and here’s why: I believe every person out there is doing the best they can at their current present moment. That means when my 8-year-old self grabbed a piece of ruled writing paper and drew that bad-ass unicorn, I thought I was pretty damn amazing. I enjoyed what I was doing and was happy with what I created right in that moment.

It’s no different from when I drew a dragon flying around a castle for fun in high school. Or when I painted one of my favorite landscapes from a 4-wheeling trip near Breckenridge just a couple years ago. Each time, I was very present in the moment, doing my honest best, and having a wonderful time doing it.

Pulling out my old artwork and exclaiming “ewww!” at it essentially negates my past efforts as an artist. To me, it’s the equivalent of meeting your younger self, giving them a kick in the shin, and telling him or her that they’re terrible and should just give up.

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  A drawing finished during my high school years

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  A painting finished just a couple years ago

Here’s a term I’ve found useful that I repeat to myself often, because in the past I used to hold myself to impossible expectations:

Perfectionism is self-abuse.

Why do I feel this trend of berating your past art is harmful? It’s because it feeds the continuous message out there that you are never, ever enough. The only way to be enough is to receive some kind of external validation from people whom, let’s be honest here, will never be satisfied. Or, it feeds our own eternally-hungry egos in order to feel superior to others. The ego says “If I’m not better than, then I am worthless.”

If you’ve been around the art-world long enough, you’ll learn two truths:

1. You are always better than someone out there.
2. You are always worse than someone else out there.

But this whole better- and worse-than attitude is what eventually destroys us and our creativity. Why? Because at its root you’re doing art not for yourself, but to impress or please others. I’ve learned that a quick way to kill my passion for art is to do it only for the purpose of seeking praise and approval from others.

“Wait!” you say, “What about constructive criticism?” Yes, there is value in reviewing what you’ve done previously and applying constructive criticism to it. “I drew her eyes too close together.” can serve as a learning tool to continue practicing your proportions, for example. But you don’t have to look at a drawing with incorrect proportions, exclaim “Oh my God, that’s horrible!” and call it a piece of garbage. I’m pretty certain when you did that first disproportionate draft, you were trying your absolute best.

All of my artworks are “drafts”, or simply practice, from which I am continually learning and adapting. If I’m lucky, I keep getting better and better. Sometimes I actually backslide, but that’s okay, too. I’ll say one thing, however, if I put myself under the pressure of expecting absolute perfection, I am sure to fail. I am a human being, after all. Perfection just isn’t in the cards.

Perfectionism is a real beast, too, in the realm of creativity. Perfectionism actually stops people from making anything at all. They worry if they can’t do it perfect, then why bother trying. Those scathing reviews by artists of their past art just feeds the Perfectionism Beast.

Have you watched artists verbally tear down their past art? How do you feel when they do it?

Here’s an exercise to try some day. Find some of your really old art, pull it out, and instead of looking at it with embarrassment and criticism, acknowledge your past efforts with praise and gratitude.