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Creating for Yourself w/ Kharysa Watt
20 Plays2 years ago
My guest today is Kharysa Watt, a horticulturalist turned freelance editor and a pencil artist. We talk about growing up without cable, Digimon, and the wild days of early internet videos on sites like Albino Blacksheep that inspired Kharysa to start drawing stick figure comics. We also chat about the journey to making art for yourself and all the stumbling blocks therein–from fearing what your parents and peers think to learning that it’s ok to leave things unfinished and to take breaks when you get frustrated.
We can’t control how other people react to our art, but we can learn that it’s ok to do things for ourselves and no other reason. To learn more about Kharysa, be sure to follow her on Instagram @kaylx.editing.
References from this episode:
Forehead Shavecut (Not sure if I can express enough just how random this video is. Watch at the risk of your own brain cells)
Slimy Oddity
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Transcript
Introduction to the Ugly Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Ugly Podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Alexander, she, they, and this is the place where creatives are encouraged to make messy, ugly art and let go of perfectionism.
00:00:14
Speaker
I started this podcast with my creative partner, Emerson, and we've since grown into our businesses. And this podcast is now evolving into a space where I interview other creatives to discuss our creative processes and how we navigate the mental mind field of creativity.
Introducing Guest: Carissa Watt
00:00:29
Speaker
This podcast serves as a reminder that you and your art get to be whatever the hell you want to be, ugly and all.
00:00:41
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Ugly Podcast. Today, I have a guest, a fellow editor who is an awesome, awesome person. And we're going to talk a little bit about
00:00:55
Speaker
creating for yourself, first and foremost, because so many of us make art for other people or for a purpose or all that stuff. So we're talking about making it for yourself.
Carissa's Creative Journey
00:01:10
Speaker
And my guest is a horticulturist turned freelance editor and a big old geek for most things, comic, video game, book, science fiction, and horror related.
00:01:20
Speaker
and is a jack of all slash many crafts, but primarily a pencil artist. Welcome. Can you please state your name and your pronouns for us? Hi, I'm Carissa Watt. I go with she, her pronouns. Yay. Excited to be here.
00:01:39
Speaker
Yay. I'm excited that you're here. Also because we like just got together last week and had like a proper sit down where we both laid out our entire life stories. And we're like, yes, we've decided we're going to be friends. Like, I like this human. Yes. Yeah, the best.
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah, so let's just kind of jump in. So tell me a little bit about your history with creativity. What were you like as a child? So I always thought of it as like, I was like normal amount of creativity for a child. I know I doodle a lot. I think my mom like
00:02:25
Speaker
wrote down in a Christmas letter once of just being like, Chris, it draws me a lot of really cute pictures. I'm like, awesome. So glad to know I've always been this way. But the thing that sticks out the most is in mid-elementary, I had a friend who we were both obsessed with Sailor Moon. And we- Oh, yes. We love Sailor Moon. Right? We created our own Sailor Scouts.
00:02:53
Speaker
Amazing. I made Sailor Earth, and I think she made Sailor Sun. It's the only one that comes to mind because we were going with items that weren't used yet. We drew so many iterations of them. I might even still have some kicking around even though I'd be so embarrassed, but I have to remind myself that I was like,
00:03:19
Speaker
eight. Right, right. Maybe, maybe older. And then like, beyond that, I met more and more friends who were into art and they kind of like, not purposefully, but in a very offhanded way, sort of like pushed me to be like, Oh, I want to learn how to do I really like your art, I want to learn how to do
00:03:45
Speaker
my stuff better or improve this or change the way that I do that. Yeah. And also spurred on by being a super like Saturday morning cartoons kid. Yes. And the moment we only had like the first 13 channels for so long, like low, low income family.
00:04:11
Speaker
I, we never had cable. The only time I had access to cable was like going to a friend's house or when we were at my grandma's house visiting because any other time it was just like, nope, we got those 12 channels. That's what you're stuck with. Right.
Influence of Media and Family on Creativity
00:04:24
Speaker
You get this, which on the one hand, like at least we had like the WB, which it's like Pokemon, Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men.
00:04:33
Speaker
At least I'm pretty sure Spider-Man and X-Men were on there. I remember watching them as a kid, so I assume somehow that related to Axis. Right. And Digimon was in there somewhere, but I think maybe that was when we got more channels, which I actually, I liked Digimon more than Pokemon. I loved Digimon. Yes, I also watched it, so it must not have been on cable because I watched it too. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:03
Speaker
Anyway, it's not important. When we were able to get like, we got more of the channels and we got like Cartoon Network and they had Toonami, which was like after school, more cartoons. And that was like, I finally got to actually
00:05:20
Speaker
sit down and actively watch Sailor Moon and they had like Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z and uh reboot which is a really obscure show that I love and nobody else knows about but I love it nonetheless and like a bunch of other anime stuff because I got into
00:05:40
Speaker
Did the anime train, yeah, and I actually had, there were a couple of manga artists that I still get some of the material that they write, if only because their art was such an inspiration for me and such like a push to improve what I did. Yeah, and it's so funny, especially considering I got really heavily into pencil art, but I was surrounded by tactile crafters.
00:06:10
Speaker
Like, my grandmother on my mom's side made historical costumes. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah, like big old Renaissance dresses. And then my grandmother on the other side did a bunch of quilting. She did, we had so many blankets and like some clothing here and there, but neither of them really ever
00:06:38
Speaker
taught us how to do that stuff. Like any of the hand sewing, cross stitching, like material, like machine sewing that I learned, I learned from like family friends, which kind of odd. Interesting, yeah. But yeah, yeah. And I expanded into drawing like baby comics when I was in junior high.
00:07:05
Speaker
And high school, I don't know what started my obsession with stick figures for whatever reason, especially since that wasn't what I was originally drawing, but I did like a bunch of stick figure comics. Oh, cool. And it's just like based on like
00:07:26
Speaker
I think this was still like pre meme era, but it's just like a bunch of like goofy videos and stuff like that or funny things that my friends and I said, or talked about. And yeah, so many. As you were talking about stick figures, I immediately like had two things that happened in my brain. One was like, all these videos that I would watch on like albino black sheep.
00:07:53
Speaker
And then there was also this like video game. It was like one of those. I can't remember what it was like this little game you could play that there was like a stick figure and he would like fall down a hill.
00:08:07
Speaker
and you could like launch him off of things but then it would just like keep going and then there'd be like little spurts of blood and I can't remember what this was but it was just like basically the stick figure falling down a hill that you could like control where he went.
00:08:24
Speaker
That sounds vaguely familiar, but I have no idea. Yeah. That's so funny. I'm so glad that you know what albino black sheep is. Yes. My friends and I were very into albino black sheep and watched all of those classic videos. My brother and I still, we still spout off lines from a video that was called Forehead Shavecut. Yes. Oh my God. Nobody knows.
00:08:53
Speaker
when I say stuff like whenever I'm like 12 12 that's an odd number isn't it like nobody knows what I'm talking about oh my god that makes me so happy yeah my brother and I will just yeah we'll just spend it with like haha I fooled you the cinnamon was actually basil oh my god you now die of basil poisoning
00:09:16
Speaker
Oh my god, that makes me so happy. I've never met another person who has watched that except for my friend growing up. Oh my god. This is the best epiphany ever. Amazing. Oh my god, yeah. So many people do not know what that is. Nope. Hopefully our delight is delight enough for them to keep listening.
00:09:42
Speaker
I hope so. I hope so. Now my brain just keeps kind of like, you dodged the bullet, Neo. No, you will die by chainsaw. It was just the height of random core in the early 2000s, just like.
00:09:58
Speaker
Amazing. So much nonsense, but it just is utterly
Embracing Imperfection in Art
00:10:03
Speaker
delightful. Talk about imperfectionism. Yes, let's just throw the most random things we possibly can, and we're going to animate it terribly and just put it out into the internet. So yeah, that was my beginning. Beginnings, yeah. Yeah, totally gotten to stick through your drawings.
00:10:27
Speaker
I made a bunch of, yeah, a bunch of comics through high school. And it didn't really continue after high school. And I actually, as I progressed through high school, I started producing less. And I got more into a space of where if I couldn't complete something in one sitting, my brain was like, we're not going to bother. We're just not like, there's no point.
00:10:57
Speaker
even if you really wanna do it, if you can't sit down and do it all in one go, then just don't do it. And there were a lot of partially finished drawings that just made me really irritated because I was like, oh, I wanna finish this, but I just couldn't get back into it. And yeah, and it just so much dissatisfaction. And for a while I thought that it had more, I do still think it has something to do with
00:11:24
Speaker
being like having ADHD. However, I think there was a lot of it that was also linked to like that internalized like it's a waste of space. And yes. And like it's not career worthy that I got from my parents. Yeah. So were your parents like
00:11:47
Speaker
like whenever you'd be doodling what they like make comments about what you were doing or. So they never really got invested in anything. It was just kind of one of those like, I was a kid that's like what you do. At most, I could convince them to get me a sketchbook every now and then. But for the most part, I had like I had a bunch of, you know, like school notebooks.
00:12:15
Speaker
And I just remember, I remember vividly in junior high, having a moment where I, to be fair, like, yeah, it was like one drawing, like smack in the middle of a notebook, but rather than, rather than my mom being like, hey, why don't you use like the space around it to like write your school notes, or
00:12:45
Speaker
Or even just being like, hey, how about we get you a different book? You can draw on that, like take it to school with you, draw on that, but I need this to be for schoolwork. But instead it was just, I was wasting space. It was that, yeah, like I was wasting, I was wasting paper in my notebooks. Yeah. And then as far as, um,
00:13:12
Speaker
As far as my dad went, I never really knew where he stood on things, but I do remember very clearly when, around the end of high school, and I'd never talked about being a professional artist. It wasn't really something that I was sure that I wanted to do. It was kind of those unattainable goals. This would be really cool, but
00:13:40
Speaker
chances are probably not, especially since I at that point, I especially wasn't drawing as much. And he just added the blue was essentially like, I don't want you to become a starving artist. And to me, while the logical part of me was like, ah, yeah, okay, like, I know that you're looking out for my financial security, but then the other part was like, okay, so
00:14:08
Speaker
you don't think my stuff is good enough. Right. Yeah. That's like the subtext there. Yeah. Yeah. To be successful or you don't think that I could make up for it by being passionate about a thing. Or that it's worth your time, even if it's not making you money. Yeah. Yeah. And further on,
00:14:37
Speaker
I was very lucky in him that he paid for my first round of college going to tech school, which is where I did my horticulture program. And I had to do just a few electives, because thankfully tech school, they're like, here's a couple of electives, but it's not as terrible as community college or universities can be, where they make you spend a lot more money. Right, yeah.
00:15:05
Speaker
And it didn't really matter what I took for these. I just had to fill the space. And it turned out that there was a human life drawing class at my school. And I was like, oh my God, that sounds amazing. I really want to take this. And I was so, I was so scared to go up to my dad and ask him
00:15:28
Speaker
since he was spending the money, like, if I could take this class. And yeah, I finally pitched it to him. I'm like, hey, I have to fill an elective. This is a class coming out that I want to take. And he totally was chill with it. He's just like, oh, yeah, it's totally fine. And I'm like, I don't understand where you fall on this. But on the other hand, I think because my program was essentially like pushing me in a financially secure, like,
00:15:56
Speaker
It was kind of like, oh, this is just a class. It's fine. And I love that class so much. I still have so many works that I look back on that I absolutely adore. It was my first foray into, well, human life drawing. So we actually had like nude models come in and pose. And it was so cool.
00:16:22
Speaker
and just challenging and actually morphed into a practice that I use nowadays. And I just do it with poses. I don't use it with like actual people, but I do like quick gesture drawings. Like I pick a pose, I pick a song and for as long as I'm listening to that song, I can work on that pose.
00:16:47
Speaker
It's all just very quick stuff, but once the song is over, I have to move on to the next thing.
00:16:55
Speaker
We have this idea that everything we do has to be good or have value. This belief leads us to burn out. It can hold us back from creating altogether. But in my Ugly Art 101 course, I break down these restrictive beliefs and lead you through exercises that intentionally subvert perfectionism and bring playfulness back into your creative process. You can get the first day absolutely free by going to my website, scribeandsunshine.com and signing up on the homepage. Join me in my weird ugly art revolution. Back to the show.
00:17:30
Speaker
What's your reasoning behind the song length, just so you don't get hung up on something? Exactly. It literally is just so I don't keep focusing on the thing. And to practice, it's okay to leave this as a partially finished thing. But also, I get the choice to
00:17:55
Speaker
I mean, even in the gesture drawing, I could just do the basic outline, but also I can take the time to focus on a specific part and hone in on pieces of detail, accent different pieces that can still make it look like a whole finished piece, just with some sketchy outlines. To shake it up and just be like, hey, it's totally fine if you leave it this way. And in this case,
00:18:26
Speaker
I'm just not really giving myself a choice in the matter, which is kind of nice. Yeah. That reminds me of the practice that I do with my ugly art and being like, make this bad on purpose and leave it and teach your body that it's okay for it to be this way. In your case, it's like, hey, body, it's fine that this is unfinished and it is fine that it is as it is and I'm going to walk away from it.
00:18:55
Speaker
Yeah, yep, yep, exactly. Yeah, and I mean, and there are some pieces that I'm like, and like, oof, I don't like that and moving along, but I just, it's the reminding myself like, hey, but this, like, this was a really good practice. Yeah. Even in some cases, looking at the thing and being like, that was a really complicated pose, like, but at least you attempted, now we can move on. Yeah, yeah.
00:19:20
Speaker
So when did you realize that you wanted to take your creativity into your own hands and worry less about what the people in your life thought? I feel like I'm still kind of struggling with that, actually. Yeah. If only because, especially in the last, I don't know, good handful of years, a lot of like a lot of drawings that have come about have been
00:19:49
Speaker
based on like somebody else being excited about a thing. Shout out to my best friend who gets invested in a lot of things and I just kind of like joined her for the ride. Very gratefully and it like I've turned out a lot of things that I really absolutely adore. But it definitely like started with a bit of other motivation coming in and so I'm still working on
00:20:19
Speaker
finding a lot of my own core motivations to kind of push myself in that realm. But yeah, especially because I really fell off the drawing wagon for a while. It'd be very intermittent. Maybe every few months I would draw something. And usually for myself, but I'd get dissatisfied really easily.
00:20:48
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that was the thing too, is when I was little, most of the stuff I did for myself, and I never really thought about it that way. But it was funny to kind of, it's funny to look back and see like this fluctuation of like, Oh yeah, like I was doing everything for myself. And then it was, you know, doing stuff for, I was in a girls leadership group and we had like,
00:21:16
Speaker
competitions and stuff like that so we could do like arts and stuff for competitions and then and then it was still like like doing comics and stuff and that was for myself but then also was kind of doing it for friends um and then high school was a lot of like like the stick figure comics were definitely partly for myself but also like i you know did them at school or you know showed them off to friends
00:21:46
Speaker
It was a whole thing.
Balancing Expectations and Creativity
00:21:48
Speaker
I love it so much. That's such a fun part of the process, though, is when you do get to share your work with people who appreciate it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like maybe that's what I hit when I got out of high school of just being like, maybe that might have been why I was so sparse, because I was doing these pieces.
00:22:16
Speaker
It wasn't for anybody. And I also didn't really feel like I could always show it off to somebody and have like the same enthusiasm or have any enthusiasm. Cause I, again, like I didn't get it. I didn't get it from my parents. My brother also does some drawing and a lot of times like we could like kind of bounce off of one another.
00:22:48
Speaker
But yeah, yeah, it's just me floating out there. And I sit in the unfortunate spot of essentially the only way that my artistic stuff gets shared by either of my parents is if it, well, mostly my mom, is if it benefits them in some way.
00:23:18
Speaker
Unfortunately, and usually it's just like, like, oh, hey, like, look what my kid did. And I'm like, cool, but you've never cared before. Right. Like, it was like she only cared or they only cared when it was good, quote unquote, good for like their standards or when they thought that it would like make maybe make them look good in some way of like, this is like, look what my kid can do, you know? Yeah, exactly. And that's I mean,
00:23:46
Speaker
On the flip side, I don't know that 100%, but it is always how it feels. Because it's definitely not all the time. It's just this every once in a hiccup or something, I'd be like, oh, look what my kid does. I do a lot more than that, and I have for a long time. Yeah.
00:24:16
Speaker
Yeah, it just, just that like inconsistent, like it'd be nice to know, like obviously it doesn't have to be all the time, but it'd be nice to know, it'd be nice to know that I could come up to you and not, you know, like my dad with the schooling thing, like not be so worried that I was going to get shot down for taking the class, just knowing that like, Hey, like he appreciates the fact that I, that I do art enough that like this will definitely not be a problem as opposed to just being like, Oh my God, there's no way.
00:24:46
Speaker
that he's going to let me take this one class. Yeah. And like, not even just like sharing with people, but the fact that like, like what you mentioned about the notebook and like wasting space, if you're only pulling what you find beneficial out of this art practice, then you're kind of like crumpling the spirit of this kid who like enjoys all of the aspects of the art process.
00:25:15
Speaker
Um, and you're not encouraging that, that spirit to flourish. You're making it feel threatened. And like, if I don't do this a certain way, then I won't get praise from my parents or I won't be able to take this class because I'm, I'm not good enough according to these standards. Yeah. And I mean, and especially as a kid, like what?
00:25:42
Speaker
maybe other than like the jury of your friends, you don't really always have a lot of other standards to go off of except your parents. Yeah. And so, yeah, like, there's a little part of me that I'm just like, I'm like, go young me for like, stick it like stick into it for so long. Yeah. Despite like, no, and I think part of that was like, I had a lot of friend validation, I think enough to kind of like, carry
00:26:09
Speaker
carry me through. But oh no, there was something that I was going to elaborate on that you touched on, but now it just flew away. It might come back. Carousel burn. It might. Fingers crossed. Oh, I think I was just, oh, just wrapping into, wrapping it back around to perfectionism, essentially from the point of like, especially if
00:26:36
Speaker
Because I can't always remember what pieces were lauded, but chances are that they were probably completed things. So this idea between if you can't complete a thing, then it won't be worth showing off. It won't be worth validation. And so what's the point of even putting it down despite
00:27:04
Speaker
Yeah, not even acknowledging like, hey, but it's actually it's really good practice. The repetition is good. The yeah, like just trying challenging things.
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So you shared a post this morning that was exactly this. We know that in order to be good at playing an instrument, you have to practice. But when it comes to writing or art, it's just like, no, you're supposed to be good at it immediately. And if you're not, then you need to stop doing it forever. How dare you have even started in the first place? Exactly. That's what our brains say.
00:27:43
Speaker
yeah oh my gosh and so another another editor had shared that and i was like oh my gosh yes so yeah it's so yeah it's so perfect it it's so baffling and i don't know how we get in these spaces of of just expecting perfection and in such specific areas i mean uh you can even relay it back to editing where like
00:28:11
Speaker
I can't imagine many of us editors are not hard on ourselves about like, but I need to be really good at this right now because this is the sort of expectation of final product that we need to be putting out.
Reclaiming Creativity
00:28:28
Speaker
Therefore, we have to have all our ducks in a row.
00:28:32
Speaker
Right. Yeah. That's the expectation. We're the perfect people. We're sure to make things perfect. And like, no, we're not. And we need to stop having this expectation on ourselves that we are. And like, authors need to not have that expectation too, because
00:28:50
Speaker
like editors are humans and humans make mistakes and even books that are edited by Six plus people like there will still be a typo that makes its way through Yeah, yeah, I I think even part of that is also just public education in general of
00:29:12
Speaker
Cause I used to be, I certainly used to be that way of if I'm like reading a thing and I come across an error, just being like, wow, like there's a typo in here. And it just, yeah, thinking back now and just being like, man, if they just managed to get one typo in here, brava. Yeah, that's good. The book that I'm reading right now, I just came across, it's like,
00:29:38
Speaker
like three quarters of the way into the book and I just happened to notice, I was like, oh, this is missing a quotation at the end of it. If anything, I was like, I was like, you know, I don't think I've ever noticed a missing quote before. Missing words or misspelled words, sure, but a quote is fascinating. That's pretty interesting.
00:30:01
Speaker
So I am curious, did you end up having like a conversation with your family or did you end up just like continuing to do your own thing and like not
00:30:12
Speaker
And if this is too personal a question, you can obviously just tell me and I will cut it. No problem. But yeah, I'm just curious because like, as of now, it seems like you're still like you still do it. You're still exploring your creativity and trying new things. And so I'm curious if you ever have to kind of stand up for yourself in that way these days. Yeah, I've I've really had to push myself back in to a lot of these areas and
00:30:42
Speaker
With drawing, it's been especially helpful, which, on the one hand, I'm like, yes, do what you can to do your art for yourself and make it yours. Though, admittedly, there's a lot of me getting back into art lately that, again, has been based on friends' passion pushing forward sort of thing. And I actually...
00:31:12
Speaker
my best friend and I, it didn't really start out as a planned thing, but I send her progress photos now. Like I'll do like a rough draft and I'll just be like, this is what I'm working on right now. And just slowly as I go through, which honestly, it's really nice to kind of have that visible record of like, Hey, this started as like two circles and now you have this. Yeah.
00:31:41
Speaker
So that has been really nice and validating. Still has the outward component, but it's been really helpful, at least on a drawing standpoint. A lot of other crafts, I've kind of had to push myself into it, if anything, because I'm like, I am interested in this and just having to push back against the perfectionism of it doesn't have to be perfect. It can be really messy. I've been having that with knitting.
00:32:12
Speaker
Yeah. I taught myself how to knit. My first scarf looks ridiculous because I ended up adding 15 extra stitches somehow. I would always end up either losing stitch, dropping stitches or adding more. Yeah. By the time I got halfway through my scarf, I was like, why is this double the size?
00:32:42
Speaker
that it is at the other end. Right. In so far as talking to, I haven't, I have not talked to my family, or at least not my parents about this, mostly because at least with, at least with my mom, I have a bit of a complicated relationship. And so yeah, I haven't had, I haven't had the opportunity. I guess technically I have kind of talked to her like,
00:33:12
Speaker
in a letter that I've sent, but we haven't actually talked it out since. With my dad, we haven't discussed that specifically, but over the years, he's gotten more acknowledging of the fact that I do
00:33:39
Speaker
It's sometimes it feels really complicated where it's just like, I'm acknowledging the fact that you are very creative and you do all these things like here and there, but I'm not acknowledging it all the time. So it just kind of like comes up in spurts of like, Oh, hey, you should like help work on this thing because you're creative. I'm like, Oh, okay.
00:34:02
Speaker
Yeah, I've gotten that a few times. Like, oh, you're creative. You know how to do things. Do this. It's like, that's not what I do, but okay. I'm like, oh, well, I mean, like I can come and help, but I can't be any sort of like artistic director. I don't know what I'm doing. Like, right. I don't know what you're trying to do here, but I will.
00:34:21
Speaker
I will come help paint your haunted house, but I do not have any special effects painting experience. I'm going to be using a lot of pictures and trying my best. It's still relatively unresolved, but a lot of it has just been me pushing myself back into
00:34:52
Speaker
into more creative spaces, which has been nice. Still struggle, but it's been nice. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, all. It's Lauren to interrupt this episode briefly to talk about my dear friend perfectionism. I was held back by my perfectionism for years. I didn't do so many things that I desired to do because I didn't think I'd be any good at them, and therefore I shouldn't do them.
00:35:18
Speaker
And this is something we all do. And I've created a workshop that's an accumulation of all the work and tools that I put into healing from perfectionism and getting back in touch with my creativity. If you struggled with this like I did, and still do from time to time, you can check out my Creating Through Perfectionism workshop at kofi.com slash scribe sunshine slash shop. And use the discount code UGLY, that's U-G-L-Y, to get 20% off of the workshop and workbook.
00:35:46
Speaker
Perfectionism doesn't go away, but we can train ourselves to work with it and to tear down or maybe walk around the seemingly immovable wall that keeps us from taking risks and moving forward. Back to the show. That's great. So as you're pushing yourself into those creative spaces, what do you do when those feelings of perfectionism start to kind of creep in?
00:36:18
Speaker
I think in like not so fancy terms, I just kind of try, I try to push it down. Unfortunately, sometimes my brain can be like an all or nothing thing. So either we're out, we quit, we walk away, or yeah, I just push it and it's just kind of one of those like, it doesn't matter. Like just keep doing the thing. Especially when it comes to drawing,
00:36:49
Speaker
I have to be, thankfully I've gotten really good at being very aware of, like if I've erased a thing like three times already, I have to walk away. Because at that point I'm just like, I'm not satisfied and I need to give myself some space before I come back to a specific part. Because otherwise I'm gonna get frustrated and then if also, if I keep making the same marks,
00:37:19
Speaker
on the paper, I'm gonna like indent the paper. And so it'll, yeah, like the mistake will mistake. The lines I don't want will still be indented in the paper. If I don't, if I don't back off. But yeah, more often than not, especially if I become frustrated, for me, I,
00:37:48
Speaker
sometimes I can really associate emotions with a thing. And I don't want stuff like irritation or anger getting associated with a piece that I'm working on. So that's another reason why it's just like, OK, I'm going to take a break. Because if you get upset about this, then you're always going to have that stirring when you come back. Yeah, that's such a good point. I've never thought of that before.
00:38:15
Speaker
Yeah, whenever I'm really frustrated with something, that piece is like the emotions glom onto whatever you've been working on. And it's just like, nope, you're never going to be satisfied with this because you just dwelled in that frustration for too long in relation to this piece. And that's just how you're going to feel about it. Yeah, exactly.
00:38:43
Speaker
Yeah, and rarely, especially if it's a trouble spot, yeah, I also try not to like settle for a thing because sometimes I can just get so like, yeah, mad that I just settle on a thing, but I'm like, no, but then every time you come back, you're gonna look at this thing and you're gonna be so upset. Yeah. And so annoyed and it's just like, but I want, yeah, like, I wanna love this. Yeah.
00:39:10
Speaker
I want to enjoy it like, yeah, even if it remains incomplete, I still want to enjoy or get the other emotions that I was supposed to get out of it. An excellent idea, yeah. Taking breaks has been like a big thing for me too. Especially when you just get so in your head about something and you just have to get out of your head and then you come back to it with fresh eyes and you're like, okay, I see what I need to do here.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah. I also, even better if I can find songs to associate with a piece that will just drive me through. Actually, I have a lot of pieces of art that literally just have the title of a song because that was probably what I was listening to the song on repeat. That's so cool. I'm like, I don't know.
00:40:10
Speaker
how many people this may or may not happen to, but yeah, like I just... It's like I completely empathize into a song and it just like all of the emotions just fill me and then like filter out. Cool. Yeah, yeah.
00:40:32
Speaker
So how do you think creatives can start to kind of turn that focus on themselves and our own desires and instead of focusing on either what our parents want us to be doing or what our peers think we should be doing or what we think society wants us to do at large, like how do we turn that focus inward and start to kind of explore what we actually like to do?
Personal Motivation in Art Creation
00:41:01
Speaker
Just like such
00:41:04
Speaker
It's like such a tough question that should be so simple because it should be so easy to be like, but just do it for yourself. But then if you have like issues with self, it can be really hard. Like I don't deserve to enjoy what I'm doing or the like, I think really,
00:41:34
Speaker
the most important thing is that to me, because I'm essentially such like a passion driven person, like most of the stuff that I've produced that I love the most were
00:41:58
Speaker
even if it was still kind of that like somebody else was passionate about it and I kind of like joined along, it still created a passion inside of me and led me to produce this thing. And it's such a drawing is really a cathartic thing for me, like even the simple stuff. And yeah, I suppose, I mean, in a sense, it's like you,
00:42:27
Speaker
You deserve to be able to enjoy the things that you create. It's funny because I just wrote down a quote this morning on my little whiteboard here and it says, be yourself, everyone else is taken. Yeah, I love that one. And yeah, it's just kind of one of those like, if somebody else wants
00:42:53
Speaker
want something created they can do it themselves like it's not the onus isn't on you you don't owe anybody anything but and while you don't like owe yourself anything like you deserve you deserve to be able to enjoy what you do especially when it comes to art like of all of the things because art is such a such a personal thing yeah that
00:43:24
Speaker
To me, it just comes from a very unique place. And yeah, you deserve to be able to soak up all of that and enjoy it and not be frustrated and not let anything taint that. And so if there's anything that is making you feel bad about your art or judged,
00:43:57
Speaker
chances like chances are it's probably like it's not because one of those like it's not you it's them sort of thing and taking a step back totally um yeah yeah
00:44:12
Speaker
Yeah, I love that overall message of you deserve to make what you want to make. And I think that's one of the hardest things to take to heart because we don't always know, one, what we deserve in this life. It's really hard to get that across that, hey, you actually deserve good things. Guess what? And then also that your uniqueness
00:44:38
Speaker
should be brought out into the world in whatever form you want to bring it out in. And creativity is one of the best ways you can do that. That's uniquely you. That's how your brain functions. It's what those connections make and what you bring out into the world. And no matter what it is, no matter what other people think about it, that still deserves to exist and you deserve to enjoy it. Yeah.
00:45:08
Speaker
Yeah, there are billions of people out there making billions of things, but none of those things are yours. And I feel like it kind of goes hand in hand with the whole, like you're never going to be able to reach or please everybody. The least you can do is make yourself happy with this one thing that you
00:45:34
Speaker
I'm gonna say you essentially have control over. I would like to make a personal note to my brain that there's so many things that look such a way in my brain that I would love to have on paper just that way, but here we are. Right. So true. But essentially, something that is, that you have control over and you can do what you want with, through your messages, through your feelings,
00:46:04
Speaker
You can share it yourself with the world, even though vulnerability is hard. I get it. Yep. Rollability is real hard. Yep. So hard. Yes. Amazing. Well, thank you so much. This was such a great conversation. I loved it. I'm just thrilled that someone else has seen Forehead Shavecut. I know. I've not been able to stop thinking about that. Amazing.
00:46:34
Speaker
Okay, so final thing is, have you made anything ugly this week? And if so, what was it? I thought that I had and now I'm like, I don't think I did.
00:46:52
Speaker
That's fine. I can go first and let you think about it if you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you go first. Okay. So I was having a bit of an existential crisis the other day, as one does. And so I was like, feeling very like angsty about just like the state of the world and my place in the world, you know, as it happens anyway. But I decided to just like start scribbling and being angsty on paper. So I started
00:47:19
Speaker
I started off just writing like nothing matters across the page and then I just like made all of these like black scribbles all around the page and then I like looked at it I thought it was done and then I was just like maybe I'll just add some color
00:47:36
Speaker
I added like some blue highlights to the scribbles and just like started decorating the scribbles and then there was like a little tiny blank spot at the bottom of the page and then I was just like okay I can make this a little more hopeful now and then I said so it said nothing matters then at the bottom in blue it said but I can add color
00:47:56
Speaker
It was nice. I love that. It's a big scribbly mess with a very hopeful message. That's so cute. Though I do shout out to the fact that you could also be like, nothing matters in a bad way, or also like, nothing matters. Yes. Oh, what is that artist? I'm going to have to link it in the show notes. There's this artist that has this little red blob
00:48:26
Speaker
that slime, is it slimy? That sounds right. I think it's slimy. Slimy oddity, that's what it is. Yeah, I think you mentioned it on a previous podcast. I think so too. Yeah, slimy oddity. And there's like this picture of this very sad looking blob looking out one window that says nothing matters. And then there's like the red happy like slimy blob looking out the window with like rainbows and stuff in the background. It's like nothing matters. So sweet.
00:48:55
Speaker
Exactly, it's just like you can go two totally different ways with
Freedom in Ugly Art Sessions
00:48:59
Speaker
this. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I made any of the art since the last time we did the Come As You Art thing. What did you make then? I made a snake.
00:49:19
Speaker
that had a lot of different colors. I went at it with so many different colors and I also discovered that I have a pencil that like it has four different colors in the in the tip. Oh okay. Yeah so I was just doing a lot of like like maneuvering the wet because then it would change all the colors. Yeah that's cool. And like it was in like
00:49:45
Speaker
field of flowers. I actually it's so funny when we do those sessions, because I have to, like the first time we did it, I had like started out with flowers and stuff like that. And part of my brain was like, no, this is supposed to be ugly. Stop doing it. And so I had to like, the other half of my brain had to step in and be like, you know, I just do what you want. Yeah, it's fine. Yep. That's where we're going. Just
00:50:10
Speaker
do the thing because and then I like added the snail and like written a bunch of stuff. Um, but I am really excited for this Thursday. Yeah, where I will definitely be doing ugly art. Yes. Anybody listening wants to join me at the end of the month. Each month we come together and we make ugly art at Come As You Art and that was very fun. So
00:50:35
Speaker
It is very, very fun. Everybody should come. Amazing. So where can people find you and how can they support you? Tell us the things. Yeah, they can find me on Instagram, I guess technically and Facebook, though I'm not very active on Facebook like I am on
00:50:58
Speaker
I'm more active in my stories right now. I do not have a lot of posts, but you can find me on calix.editing. It's spelt K-A-Y-L-X. Editing is the handle. And yeah, that's really, that's all my editing stuff. I do also have like my website, calixediting.com that you can check out.
Conclusion and Resources
00:51:26
Speaker
And I hope to have more stuff soon. I'm still baby business person working on that. Yay, baby business. Yay. Cool. Well, thanks so much for joining me, Carissa. And I will talk to you soon. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah. And thank you, everybody, for listening. Keep it ugly.
00:51:50
Speaker
The Ugly podcast is created by me, Lauren Alexander of Scribe and Sunshine. It is produced and sort of edited, also by me, and written and directed by absolutely nobody. If you like the podcast, be sure to write and leave a review on your preferred platform and share with the creative people in your life. If you're interested in learning more about what I do, head to scribeandsunshine.com to learn more about my Ugly Art 101 course, my perfectionism workshop, my editing services, and the Writer's Home, which is an online community for writers, co-captain by myself and Gabby Goodlow. As always, keep it ugly.