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Make Ugly Art

Ingrid Murray mixed media art journal page with collage, white, green, and blue tempera paint, and oil pastel.

For each piece of polished, finished art shared online, every artist has a whole pile of unfinished, “messed up,” or ugly pieces. And that’s exactly as it should be.

I, for example, don’t love the art journal spread above.

It started out with some collage and minimal marks with oil pastel and black India ink, but I realized that it reminded me of camouflage and hunting — not something that resonates with me. I added more colors and marks, still hated it, and then covered up most of it with white tempura paint. It’s fine. Whatever. I’ll turn the page and do something else.

For years, I’ve been telling anyone who’ll listen: make ugly art.

It’s one of the first things I recommend to emerging artists, those who are afraid of messing up (whatever that might mean) or who desperately want to be able to translate what’s in their mind onto the page but haven’t practiced long enough to know how to do that.

Purposefully making ugly art lessens the fear of creating something you dislike and is a great exploratory process.

Some ideas for making ugly art:

Use color combinations you don’t like or usually use
Scribble out or paint over sections of your work
Stick down collage any which way
Try using tools you haven’t used before
Use materials you aren’t usually interested in or aren’t special: tissue paper or wrapping paper, a receipt, a ripped ad from a magazine, etc.
Move quickly and impulsively, not thinking about what you’re going to do next

The best part about setting out to create ugly art? If you finish it and hate it, you’ve succeeded. But if you finish it and love it or love sections of it, you’ve also succeeded.

No matter the outcome, you are creating, exploring, practicing, and learning so much more about what you do and don’t like.

Detail of Ingrid Murray mixed media art journal page with collage, white, green, and blue tempera paint, and oil pastel.

Much Ado About Noting

A twilight sky with geese flying in a V in the distance.

People talk in a precious way about genius, creativity, and curiosity as superpowers that people are born with but noticing is a more humble pursuit. Noticing is something we can all do.”
Jason Kottke

In a Shakespeare class in college, I learned that “nothing” and “noting” were pronounced nearly the same in Elizabethan times. Much Ado About Nothing — one of my favorite plays — is both about making a fuss out of nothing, and of the plot drama that comes out of noting, or noticing.

I pay a lot of attention to the little things: details in artwork, the way bees kiss flowers (and sometimes take naps in their petals), forgotten grocery lists. I’ve also kept a logbook for the past few years, keeping record of my daily life.

Noticing/noting; little nothings. Little notings.

A huge number of the photos I take are studies in composition, a way of noticing and appreciating the random, everyday textures and colors around me.

A brown and green frog sticks its head out of pond water, green water plants in the background.

A closeup shot of large text over a black background. What it says is unclear, but it looks like parts of a P, S, the word "in", and an O and an R.

While an art form all in their own, small observed details can also be the spark for something bigger.

Pursue your curiosity: asking questions like “What do I like about this?” and “What textures, colors, and compositions could I borrow?” and “What if…?” may result in a surprising painting, an essay, or a entirely new way of working.

Wisdom from the Past

Years ago, I kept a blog called My Peacetree where I explored art, healing from trauma, and the natural world. I took an extended hiatus after I enrolled in college, started my career, and settled into adult life.

But looking back, there are so many bits and pieces of those years of writing that still ring true.

Even cooler, sometimes they speak to and build upon one another:

Starting – picking up a paintbrush, a camera, a pen – can be one of the most difficult things to do in a creative’s life when inspiration has vanished. If we feel we have nothing to give, our minds ask us why we should we begin at all. And so we get discouraged, believing that we have lost our gift, and sink deeper into a creative rut.
Let me share a secret with you, darling, one that I must remind myself of again and again and again: often, the inspiration comes in the creating.
Inviting Inspiration, 2011

My experiments in art do not have to result in perfection. In fact, they rarely do. We as a society, as a world, are obsessed with success, and failure is often a threat. Not so in my art journal. Here, I can play and seek out and explore and find comfort in the tension and disharmony of my mistakes. Here, I can accept them for what they are.
I thank them for the wisdom they’ve given me. And I turn the page.
Lessons Learned in Art and Life, 2016

You Are a Garden

A field of tiny white flowers at dusk. Those closest to the camera are in focus.

We’re constantly bombarded with messaging about how we can be better, more efficient humans. Defy aging with this eye cream! Optimize your SEO for maximum views! Use this app to reach maximum productivity!

It’s exhausting.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be human. At one time, I thought that there a perfect version of myself that I needed to strive for, someone who had no flaws or feelings or difficulties. I thought that to be human was to reach the most unmarred of myself. If I could just TRY harder, I’d get there. And if I couldn’t bring myself to try hard enough, then there was something inherently wrong with me.

With time, my perspective has shifted. I’ve given myself grace. I am learning to lean into being a messy, inconsistent human who feels things deeply and makes mistakes and changes her mind and has good days and bad days. I’ve remembered that the urgent chant of “more! more! more!” is a toxic characteristic of white supremacy, and I’ve complained about being told to do more in the midst of a pandemic.

Perfectionism is poisonous

There have been two pieces of writing that have deeply influenced me this year. The first is this:

You are not a machine. You are more like a garden. You need different things on different days. A little sun today, a little less water tomorrow. You have fallow and fruitful seasons. It is not a design flaw. It is wiser than perpetual sameness. What does your garden need today?
If you expect a garden to “produce” things with the same regularity and sameness as a machine, you will be disappointed. If you try to maintain a garden the same way you would a machine, you will destroy it. The same is true of your body and emotional life. Give into your garden.
Joy Marie Clarkson

The second is Oliver Burkeman’s 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.

What both have in common is a recognition that striving for perfection — a mastery of everything, all at once, unendingly — is not only completely impossible, but will break us. We cannot achieve everything, and we can achieve no one thing perfectly.

Embrace your humanity

You and I are not machines. We were never machines. We are “child[ren] of the universe, no less than the trees and stars.” At one point, our ancestors spent all of their lives creating, whether it be shaping pottery or cooking or telling stories or making music or sewing. At one point, we remembered who we were.

You and I, we’re human. We are full of contradictions and limitations, and that is what gives us character and substance. That’s what makes us everything we are and, in a paradoxical way, perfect.

Remember to slow down. Embrace your full humanity. Tend your garden.

ICAD 2022

Here they are: all 61 index cards created over the past two months as part of the Index Card a Day (ICAD) project. I used the same materials as last year: 4×6″ index cards, collaged papers, acrylic paint and ink, tempura paint sticks, oil pastels, and various mark-making utensils. Visit my Instagram to see each card in more detail.

This project continues to challenge me, pushing me to focus on creating rather than judging or overthinking. And when you create consistently, with an emphasis on process over outcome and quantity over quality, magical things happen.

Read more about the ICAD daily challenge on Tammy Garcia’s website, and see some of my favorite 2021 cards here.