The Perfect Imperfect: How Letting Go of Perfection Helped Me Grow as an Artist

When Your Creative Practice Stops Growing

Recently, I embarked on a period of mentoring. I felt stuck in my practice - happy with the work I was making but feeling unsure of the next steps. I was feeling constrained, and I honestly couldn't see a way to push my work forward into its next evolution.

I'd found myself in the quiet, cul-de-sac of my comfort-zone, when what I yearned for was challenge. This kind of creative block something so many mid-career artists go through; we spend years and years honing a craft, making it as perfect as possible, refining and polishing. And once we have the most perfect version of the piece we were trying to craft... What then? We have to find a balance between honouring the skills we've spent so long learning, and the impulse to burn it all down and embrace the freedom of the clean slate.

Returning to Sketching and Letting Go of Perfection

During my mentoring, I found myself returning to sketching. It's not something that has ever been a core part of my practice - probably because I'm not terribly good at it. But in this moment of uncertainty, I wasn't chasing perfection. I was chasing the best expression of the things I wanted to say. A lot of them were rubbish. A few of them were good. But they did all allow me to say the things I needed to say, and I realised that a lot of the polishing, the refining, the perfection that I had been seeking in my mixed media works had polished out some of the raw edges that made the work feel like an adventure.

Foetal, graphite on paper

Finding Clarity Through Vulnerability

Perfection has always been tricky for me. I remember as a teenager the revelation that 'our imperections make us perfect'. It sounds trite, I know, but it was important at the time. I understood that it was our imperfections that made us different, that allowed us to tread different paths. But it wasn't ever something I was able to embody. The self-worth that I was able to attribute to myself came from competance, skill and hard work. And when you follow these to their logical end, you find yourself with a pursuit of perfection. It came with a lot of pride when I didn't drop a single point on my final degree project. I'm still proud of that one. But I'm not sure I'm so proud of my pursuit of it.

Funnily enough - and the thing that I never actually gave recognition too - was that this final degree project came from my most vulnerable time. I was uncertain of myself, my future, my character. And it came out in the work. It was the most human piece I'd ever created. The most perfectly imperfect.

Embracing Imperfection in My Artistic Practice

Through this period of mentoring, I gained clarity over what my work is about - and this gave me avenues to push the works forward. I've now reached a point where I feel able to apply to do my PhD - something that I've always wanted to do but never really felt confident enough in my direction to pursue it. But writing my research proposal, I found myself striding once again towards perfection; the perfect, academic proposal with as little of my messy, vulnerable self in there as possible.

It took me four drafts to place myself within the research, to identify my position, and describe my own interests. When I finally did, the proposal came to life. It had a direction, it felt tangible and relatable to lived experience. And there's the thing - the pursuit of perfection can give you great results, but it can abstract the very heart of the thing.

And my reseach area? Care. It's as human and heart-driven as you can get.

Just me - tired and imperfect and trying to be ok with that :)

Creativity, AI and the Value of Being Human

Integrating more of my complex, messy, imperfect, heart-led thinking into my process has led me to new ideas, ambitious proposals and has guided me out of the quiet cul-de-sac of my mind - a mind that has been trained and rewarded to gravitate towards perfection. As we move into increasingly digitised reality, it's these messy imperfections that will allow us to see new possibilities, to reach new conclusions, and to be more human. AI can deliver us polished results - it gives us good, clean, tidy answers (for the most part, anyway). But it can't describe our messy hearts, and that's where we find connection to each other. AI, for me, has been a good teacher - it's been a mirror for the thing I had been chasing - and it's made me realise its limitations. Polish in our current landscape is too easily acheived, and it's become boring.

Small step by small step, I'm placing myself back in the frame. I'm being messy. I'm unsure of the end point. And I'm enjoying the adventure.

Anna x