Making Bad Art

There is a saying that goes something along the lines of — there is good and bad art but it’s still art.

As an artist that pays attention to the details, I find myself often chasing perfection in creativity. Forgetting that it’s okay to experiment and paint outside the lines. I somehow end up somewhere in the middle; where I allow myself the creative freedom to experiment, yet also refine my form to a method that becomes stylistically my own. And yet I wonder, do I try new styles or challenge my limits on what defines said form? Do I allow myself to make something that lacks familiarity or to try and be okay if it fails?

I tried making coffee art recently. Something I did back with an art teacher in high school. The original piece I loved. Turning spilt coffee and marker doodles into art. My intention this time was to use the coffee as a background with lines and shadows. I ended up adding Chinese ink as well. Though the coffee didn’t take as well as I would have liked to the paper and was too diluted. I then put dried leaves on top of the base. The leaves were from my indoor plants that I had dehydrated. I imagined having all these shapes and shadows with the leaves lying on top in a collage and the abstract coffee and ink strokes in the background. It was a way to appreciate leaves and their shapes after they have fallen and dried out. To still admire something after it had ceased admiration.

It didn’t end up looking the way I had liked and it is now sitting, incomplete with a bag of flat pressed dehydrated leaves waiting to be used. This piece doesn’t necessarily have an audience. It’s not something someone would likely buy like my other paintings either. It is just something I made, and that I failed at. And I have allowed myself this ‘failure’. To recognize imperfection, and see it as an opportunity to discover something different. A new way of seeing something. To think outside the lines of what is considered art. I likely will continue with this incomplete piece at some point. And it may end up just being bad. It may not be any good, but it is still art. Even though it is not complete.

At some point this attempt at something different may lead to something better. Something that hasn’t been tried before. And that is the fun part of being an artist. It doesn’t have to be done a certain way. It doesn’t even have to be different. It’s all part of the creative process. You could make a thousand flower paintings, and the last still be no less beautiful than the first. And even though a piece isn’t finished doesn’t make it any less beautiful. Our ability to create and try new things is what makes being an artist challenging and all the while rewarding. Bad art makes room for good art.