Facing the Fear: How to Overcome the Anxiety of Sharing Your Art

Explore strategies to overcome the fear and anxiety of putting your art out into the world.

This is the Mural I got commissioned to do after putting myself out there. Story is detailed below.

It is one thing to create and enjoy your own work, and another to put you and your art out there. It can be nerve wracking and scary. The fear of rejection and miss-interpretation is defiantly strong in the start. I do not think the fears ever go away but they do lessen.

I recommend starting small. Share your art with a close friend or family member. They are often most likely to be supportive. Once you feel comfortable to share with them, slowly expand to other friends, family and even teachers that you click with.

There may be some people who don't like or understand your art. At the end of the day your art is yours and it really only matters that you like it. Every time you think "they won't like it" correct yourself by saying to yourself "what if they like it." The truth is that you wont know who your audience is until you share your art and yourself. Just like friends, not everyone is meant for you and you aren't meant for everyone. same thing goes for your art.

Reaching out to local libraries, hotels and galleries' to put your art up is the next step and can be cool because people will see your art and you, other than the openings, wont necessarily interact with the observers. This can be a good foot in the door. Some of those people may begin to follow your art and start discussions with you. Then reaching out and handing out business cards in the next step. again weird at first, the more you do it, the easier it gets.

Shifting your mindset to help counter negative thoughts and fears, is not easy. It sounds simple, but it takes time and LOTS of practice. When you start sharing art with strangers and potential buyers, will have awkward moments and uncomfortable conversations. I have had MANY.

One of my awkward interactions got me a commission to paint a mural. I went in for my first dental cleaning at Aroostook Dental Hygiene in Fort Kent Maine. Everyone is so nice, amazing at their job, and great to work with. They had opened not long before I was there. I was trying to start handing out my business cards more. Well.. after my cleaning was complete, what I wanted to say was "I have a lot of interesting art, coasters, stickers and more if you want to take a look, my website is on here." This is not what came out of my mouth. I felt like I was outside my own body watching me speak. I said something along the lines of "If you are looking for artwork and paintings, I am an artist" and handed over my card. I had a moment where my face and ears felt hot and internally was like "fudge that was too strong and not what I wanted to say, did I just put my foot in my mouth? My thoughts where quickly interrupted with "would you do a mural?" I said yes, but I would like them to look at my artwork and a concept sketch before deciding to have me paint for them. They ultimately had me paint the mural for them and learned ALOT doing it. This was the first time I really put myself out there like that. I will do another post talking about how I approached the mural and what I would do differently next time.

I have also had children and adults see my paintings completely different from how I do. Not a bad thing, I find it cool how multiple people can look at the same piece of artwork and see so many different things. I have also had people just plain not like my art.

I think the more you share your art, the more you find your people and audience. But, you will also find people who are not one of those people and that is okay. In the beginning it is the hardest. The more you share, the more you will learn that the worst people can do is say no, critique, or not like your art. There are so many different types of art, artists and people, not everyone will jive with you or your art. As long as you like what you do and put yourself into everything you do, you will find your tribe of artist, friends, and art followers.

I will end this post with a clip from a poem I wrote when I was around 12 and has always helped me in times of uneasiness with sharing myself, my story and my art.

You are you,

so be you,

not someone,

you're not

If you,

are, not you,

then, who are you?