Why Bad Art is Great

In my early 20s I read a few articles extolling the virtues of making bad art. I thought it was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard of. This was around the time I finished earning my MFA in Creative Writing. Let’s be honest here - I went to grad school to put off having to figure out what to do with my life. And it was fiction writing, which I would’ve been doing anyway.

So there I was, pretentious as pretentious can be, convinced that there was no point in doing anything if you weren’t going to do it as well as humanly possible. And yet, when it came time to try to find a literary agent for my first-person, present tense, stream-of-consciousness novella, I half-assed it. Actually, I think it’s more accurate to say I quarter-assed it. Mind you, I doubt that any amount of effort would’ve landed me an agent - my artistic vision prohibited me from considering that it might be not very good and you can’t fix a problem you don’t see.

Hoo boy, was I insufferable.

I’ve since learned how amazing it is to make bad art. It’s one of the more fun ways to practice letting go of perfectionism, so I’m going to be encouraging you to do lots of it.

I’m not talking about deliberately ugly art. If you go in that direction, you could accidentally end up making a statement on society, creating Art with a capital A and that’s not what we’re going for here.

By bad art, I mean art made with a childlike love of process and disregard of artistic merit. Of course, I was a perfectionist even in the 3rd grade. Then, drawing a picture meant drawing a house, a woman in a dress, and/or a tree, done in the style I’d learned from my classmates. So if you were like me, think back to an even younger you. Or try to get into the mindset of a child you know who isn’t a perfectionist.

When our teachers set us loose with a basket of crayons, they weren’t trying to get us to create masterpieces. They were teaching us the joy of creativity.

For me, the key to letting go of perfectionism was to identify something I wasn’t good at, and it didn’t bother me that I wasn’t good at it. There are so many types of art, so there’s probably one that fits the bill for you. I settled on making collages.

My early efforts were so far from perfect that I was able to relax and enjoy the process. Over the past few years I’ve made dozens of collages. It was inevitable that my technique would improve. I started learning more about mixed media art because it caught my interest and it’s fun to learn stuff.

I shared photos of some of my collages on Instagram a couple of years ago. They are…not good. I wasn’t showing off - it was the accountability part of one of those online art challenges. Those posts got likes and kind comments from friends, and kindly encouraging comments from strangers who actually make collages for reasons beyond mental health.

Not a single person pointed out the obvious flaws or suggested improvements. Neither was I hailed as the next great outsider artist, and that was fine.

OK, but then what?

Making art for the sake of the process leaves you with a lot of art lying around. Even if you share pix online, you still have this thing taking up space. I can’t bring myself to throw out my finished work, which is OK. The cool thing about mixed media art is that you can cut up your old artworks and use them in your new ones, so I just keep mine with the art supplies.

I’ve also made small collages that I include in letters and notecards - that way I can’t ruminate over how I could’ve done it better and someone else gets something that’s aesthetically pleasing. Or they just throw it out, which is fine because I’ve let it out into the universe so I can focus on the next project.

Is there a form of art that you’re not good at, and don’t care about your lack of skill? Tell us in the comments, and join The Accomplist Community so you can post pix in the Art Gallery.

If this resonates with you, leave a comment below and join the Team Accomplist FB Group.