please make some bad art

Your First Draft is Supposed to Be Crap.
(That’s kinda the point.)

I first heard the phrase “shitty first draft” in the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and like a lot of sticky little truths, it lodged itself into my brain and started poking at my noodle, shifting things. The way I made art changed. The way I wrote changed. In a big way, it shifted how I start, basically, ANYTHING.

I don’t usually love phrases like “mindset shift", (they feel like the emotional equivalent of green juice and hustle culture) but in this case? That’s exactly what it was. Saying to myself “this is just a shitty first draft” is like flipping the big red “permission” switch in my brain. Suddenly it doesn’t matter if what I make is brilliant. It doesn’t even have to be good. It just has to exist. Move from my brain to the page, the canvas, the world. That’s the point.  Good enough and done, existing in the world, is better than perfect and only in your head.  That "shitty first draft" is the stepping stone that gets us moving in some small way.

There’s no perfection required in a first draft. No pressure to nail it. No need for polish or genius. It’s just the first step. And maybe the second one’s a little wobbly too. When babies start off on their first lurching steps, we don't tell them they are terrible at walking when they don't immediately master it. Can you imagine if we said to a learning-to-walk baby what we have said to ourselves when diving into a creative project?  "hey you, baby! you really think you're gonna walk somewhere? you're terrible. don't even bother. you'll never figure it out." (Wow, that inner critic can be a REAL jerk sometimes.  Substitute "walking" with "art'ing" and see if it sounds familiar.)

We forget this sometimes: everybody starts somewhere. All those artists with work hanging in galleries? They’ve got piles and piles of “bad” art somewhere. Practice pages. Experiments. Weird little creatures made out of buttons and glue and late-night impulse. We only see the highlights. But the truth is, we get to the good stuff in spite of (and often because of) the mess.  Sometimes the "mess" is actually what nourishes the final piece. My dahlias love some good, rotting, messy compost.  Our art, our writing - it all gets better when we embrace the mess, allow it to teach us and even nourish us.

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I have what I call my “upstairs art” – typically smaller creative projects that I can do in bed or from the couch.  Lately it's been little slow-stitched, improv collages on thrifted wool squares. I try not to plan ahead.  Just reach into the scrap bin for the next colorful bit that calls to me. It reminds me of something Orly Avineri said in a class I took once. She encouraged us to make choices: “Like a bird building a nest.” Not all planned out. Just bit by bit, the sparkles that catch our eye, the color that begs to be next. That line hung on my studio wall for a while, and I come back to the idea often.
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This is how I've been stitching these wee fabric pieces, but it's also how we piece together a life. We can be paralyzed by the planning and choices and the idea that we are somehow going to get it wrong.  We can be frozen in the how-do-I-begin?? But what if we just focus on the next thing?  We fly out into the world, pick up the next thing that looks interesting, or useful, and bring it back. Stitch it into the fabric of our life. Don’t overthink it. Just keep building. The nest begins to take shape.

Every stitch, every scribble, every weird gluey collage is its own little draft. A layer. A beginning. Every person we meet, class we take, book we read, connection we remember - these build a life layer by layer. I remind people in my groups all the time: anything we can do on the page, we can practice in our lives. So if you can get okay with the messy, honest first try in your journal, it might just get a little easier to take that next step in real life—even when you have no clue where it’s leading. Maybe something you try doesn't work this time, but you learn something new and try again later. But that learning only happens when we are brave enough to do *something*, anything.

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*This is not an actual photo of me in a beret, this is just a tribute.

(Side note: after decades of trying, I finally taught myself how to make a French knot! Apparently all it took was a beret and pretending I was in a Parisian textile rebellion. Viva la embroidery!)

​Maybe right now, you’re in the “scribbling-on-napkins” phase of a dream or a transition or a wildly new version of yourself. You don’t know what the "Mona Lisa" of your life is going to be yet—and that’s okay. You’re building a nest. You’re trying some stitches. You’re showing up, draft after draft.

Hey, if that journal page looks terrible?  Paint over it. Glue something on it. Scribble.  And if today was kind of a trash fire? Call it a shitty first draft. Go to bed. Try again tomorrow. That’s how creativity works. That’s how life works.

You have a beautiful imagination, and an infinite capacity for creativity (don't believe it? fight me.), PLEASE, make some crap art.  Write some terrible poetry. Create journal pages that have layers and layers of mess, and mistakes, and color and texture and JOY.....and maybe create a life to match.

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P.S. (do we do a P.S. on blog posts??? oh well, it's happening) Back in 2022, I talked with my good friend Meg about perfectionism, and why it is so important to have spaces where we can practice NOT being perfect.  You can listen to that podcast episode here.

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Come make mini-journals with me this month!

Open to everyone. Simple materials you probably have around the house.
Connection, creativity, FUN, and surely a few shitty first drafts!
(no perfectionism allowed)
Thurs, Aug 28  ALL THE INFO IS HERE 

It can feel challenging to keep moving into the beautiful mess and away from the perfectionism that keeps us frozen in non-action. Need a wee, gentle nudge?

Comment here, dm me on social media, or send an email, 
and I'll send you my Recovering Perfectionist pdf -
with journaling prompts, ideas for letting go of perfectionism, and more.