“The Prepper” by Jason Kotecki. 16 x 16. Oil on canvas.
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When my wife told me she was pregnant with our first child, my heart filled with joy.
Two seconds later, panic arrived at the party.
All I could think about was how profoundly our lives were about to change and I didn’t have the slightest idea of how to prepare. I immediately began searching Amazon for the latest owner’s manual for babies.
Kim, on the other hand, seemed to calmly slide into the nesting phase that’s common to many moms in the animal kingdom. In preparation for a new life, they instinctually work to create conditions for that new life to thrive.
In the years since I’ve seen Kim navigate this phase for all three of our kids, and I’ve realized there are parallels between mothers and artists. While not all of us get to experience motherhood, I believe that every last one of us is an artist.
Yes, even if you can only draw stick figures.
In essence, an artist is simply someone who brings something new and beautiful into the world with the potential to improve it in some way. It’s a one-of-a-kind gift that could not be created by anyone else.
You could have been born at any time in any place, but you were born when and where you were born and you are alive now. You were born for a reason! As long as you’re still breathing, you have something within you the world needs.
It might be a novel, a non-profit, a painting, or a play. Perhaps it’s a sculpture, a sonnet, or a song. It could also be that a building, a business, or a movement will be your masterpiece.
We need to take this endeavor as seriously as a mother takes the preparations for her new baby. We need to create conditions that give our undertaking its best chance of success, and that involves three things: supplies, space, and safety.
A serious mother collects the supplies that will be needed to help her succeed: diapers, bottles, creams, clothes, blankets, and toys. A serious artist needs supplies, too. It might be pens, pencils, paper and paint, or yarn, wood, software, or clay.
A serious mother considers where the baby will sleep and play and she creates space for that to happen. Likewise, a serious artist also requires a dedicated space, even if it’s just a small folding table in the corner of their bedroom, or a workbench in the back of the garage.
Finally, a serious mother makes preparations to ensure her youngster is protected and safe to grow and develop. A serious artist also needs a safe space for creativity. New ideas are especially fragile. One must not judge them too harshly at the start, for they need time to blossom into what they are to become.
The nesting stage is fun, exciting, and imbued with the magic of anticipation, as you envision all the memories (or masterpieces) that will be made. It is a good inclination to want everything you need, and make sure it all has a place. After all, when you are in the whirlwind of caring for a newborn (or in the thick of the creative process), it’s helpful to have what you need, when you need it.
But don’t be fooled.
The trap that awaits both mothers and artists is the desire to have all the supplies one could corral, the most ideal space one could hope for, and the highest level of safety and comfort possible.
All parents eventually come to discover that you are never fully prepared for a baby to arrive in your home. There will always be something you’ve forgotten, something you run out of too quickly.
It’s ok. Eventually, you learn to make do, and from these constraints come real growth.
One thing is certain…when it comes to parenting, Mother Nature will not be delayed. The baby is coming, ready or not.
Alas, this is where the comparisons diverge, for the artist has no such advantage. As such, he or she may be lured into a trap that tricks them into a never-ending nesting phase of collecting all the colors and tools and tricks of the trade.
It’s an illusion. Under the guise of being serious, the artist is now simply hiding. One must never be fooled into waiting for conditions to be perfect, because they never will be.
If an artist is not careful, nine months of preparation can slip into nine years of procrastination, justified by not enough time, not enough space, not enough money to begin. Before you know it, nine decades of life are spent and the art your soul desired to make, the gift the world so desperately needed from you, never gets to emerge.
Serious artists don’t let preparation turn into procrastination.
We don’t need perfection. But we do need your art.
