when you are a shy artist

A poetic letter to all my bashful babes. I see you and want to be your friend.

This is for you my gentle souls and delicate observers of the world, the stars that fade in the cluster gases of galaxies too distant for the eye to see, for the tiny petals at the center of a wide peony and the one ring in the tree stump among hundreds of many of years of life living. You mean something, even if you make yourself small against the spotlight and shrug away from praise, pushing it off as no big deal. My sweet, shy, and bashful artist you are so humble in your presence.

You don’t boast or brag. You don’t steal the shine of any. You contribute what you can and you are selfless in your image. These are lovely qualities within balance. But do you constantly freeze when confronting opportunity? Do you cower when boldness and rage is required of you? Do you allow hungry creators to scramble over you? Shy artist, this is a harm you are perpetuating in your act to be meek.

When you are a shy artist, like myself at times, it feels overwhelming to claim such a broad and overarching title. So many questions come up like: what sort of art do you do? do you make money from it? are you any good? do you have an audience? why do you do what you do? what’s the theme of your art? And on and on and on. When you are a shy artist, sometimes you know nothing.

You may hide the deepest parts of you for fear of nearly anything that would make you feel humiliated and rejected, so you stay in sketches and unfinished projects. You might halfheartedly attempt to collaborate with others if you are even so bold to get there. People around you may never have guessed you have tasteful sensibilities. Who is your art for shy artist? Is it only for the parts of you that are scared? That expect the worst? Why are you so shy? Ask yourself compassionately.

There’s nothing to fear. I understand you. I can reach my hand out in empathy and agree that it is scary to be free for fear of it not lasting. I can say I am a recovering shy artist. I say recovering because it is a constant battle to this day to not compare my progress with others or to feel dissatisfied with the current structure of the world and my strong armed life which is hostile to creativity. But I plead that we prevail for if there is nothing else to live for, there are stories to be shared, paintings to be admired, and life to be created. It is worth it.

They say romance is friendship preserving and I say creating is life preserving, demanding to be more than survival and more than suffering. If you are a shy artist, we need you especially to bring us back to the quiet among the loud advertising and consuming and the blind and suffocating pollution of deception and despair. When the world tells us to be one thing and you a diamond refuse to fit in a circle, share that. When your doubters debase you, shuck off the filth of their malicious magic and cultivate your own destiny. When your insecurities bite you like a million fire ants in your brain, care for your body gingerly. We need you shy artist, just as you are because you are uniquely one in a sea of everything ever.

I do not write this to convince you to change yourself or to tell you you should put yourself out there more to be successful. I write to you because I see you in me and I in you and I know that if you matter and that I matter then our nature belongs here. The shy artists belongs here to remind us of the artistic process which is not always glamour and glitz. That the blade of grass which sprouts from the dirt is just as creative than the celebrities in the editorials or the colleague you measure yourself up to in psychic self-harm.

When you are a shy artist, you may believe you do not deserve the attention and compensation your art is truly worth, but I’m here to say you do and remind you that you have a right to kick and scream and be the most messy and most braggadocious part of your character if even just to experiment and release once in a while. Shy artist give yourself a chance and show me that I can too. Let me learn from you.

With sincerity & tenderness,

Val