When I first started pursuing art as a career I was often given a warning. It is a warning I myself have passed on to others and that warning is this:
Be very careful turning something you love into a job, because it might take that love away from you.
A bit shocking that warning. A bit dramatic.
It's quite different from the other advice we are given, about how "if you love your job you'll never work a day in your life." And yet it's a warning that should be heeded.
I remember finishing my bachelor's degree in art and coming to the strange realization that during all those years I had stopped drawing for myself. Sure, I might still enjoy the process or the product, but all of my work was for assignments, for practice, or for clients. When I sat down at the page, no prompt before me, I was as blank as the sheet itself. I had forgotten how to just draw for me.
It is true that making something a job will take away some of, if not all of, your passion for it. A dangerous prospect for something so passion-based.
So, how do you get that passion back?
To do that, you must go back. Back to your childhood, or whatever got you interested in art in the first place. Back to your interests and obsessions. It may not be an easy trek, and it might be one you have to make time and time again, but in the end you might rediscover, might rescue, your love.
Recently I had the privilege of designing a cover for Tumbleweird's November 2024 issue. When I asked what they were looking for they simply said to: "draw whatever you'd like." A more daunting task than they likely knew.
What did I want to draw? What would be fun for me? What did I love and want to share? I went back. Back to my childhood bedroom where my mother painstakingly painted an ivy arch over my bed, little fairies floating by the leaves. Back to fairytales stacked on my bookshelf.
She would have to be fall-themed, my fairy, to match the season. Perhaps seated on a frog? No, a mushroom! A little beetle friend and an acorn for a cap. Suddenly the ideas were flowing like a river after a storm. I sketched with a joy I hadn't felt in some time.
By the time I delivered the final product I felt proud of my work, but more proud with how I felt about it. This was me. This was my work. This was what I loved. When given the time and the chance to find it, that love was still there. Buried, perhaps, by to do lists and emails, but always faintly present. Just waiting for us to go back for it.
To see the November 2024 issue of Tumbleweird click here
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