The Valley Of The Suck

We have all reached points in making art where it feels like nothing is working. We get frustrated with the art we are trying to create and we feel defeated. I call this The Valley of the Suck.

The Valley of the Suck is the familiar and miserable moment when everything caves in and you feel like you can’t get anything right.

Hope is lost.

Artists everywhere experience this. I used to think it was part of the process and that you just had to trudge through this step by step. I thought it was a right of passage and part of the artist’s journey and in my own experience, after some wretched period of time, eventually something would snap I would gradually make my way out of it and start making progress again.

It doesn’t have to be that way. I now understand that the Valley of the Suck is caused by very real problems that we face as artists.

On one side is ability. You are facing a very real problem. You don’t understand how to work with these new paints or you don’t understand the anatomy, something just isn’t going right. The arm looks funny. The head is enormous. That color is all wrong. We realize that we are lacking some essential knowledge or the skill. If we don’t come up against gaps in knowledge and skills how will we know what we need to learn? How will we work out the next steps in our training and in our minds? This wall is essential for growth.

The other wall is shame. It’s based on the emotion that stops us in our tracks and fills us with doubt. We feel embarrassment about not having this ability and leads us to question our worthiness to make art.

Turn these walls into a ramp to get out of the Valley of the Suck by understanding their place and value.

Give yourself time and let your art live by giving yourself time and the patience to invest in your own growth as an artist.