Make Bad Art with Nancy Norbeck

Are you tired of perfectionism holding you back from creating? In this episode of Lattes & Art, host James William Moore sits down with Nancy Norbeck, a Master Certified Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coach, SoulCollage® Facilitator, novelist, and all-around champion of artistic freedom. Nancy’s project, Make Bad Art, encourages creatives of all levels to embrace imperfection, silence their inner critic, and rediscover the pure joy of making art without judgment.

We’ll discuss with Nancy the myths that stifle creativity and discuss why the "bad" art we make might just be the most important. Whether you’re an experienced artist or someone who’s been afraid to pick up a paintbrush, this episode will inspire you to let go, take creative risks, and have fun in the process.

Grab your latte and join us as we explore the beauty of imperfection in art! ☕🎨✨

🔗 Connect with Nancy Norbert

🌐 Make Bad Art: https://makebadartcourse.com/

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Transcript

00;00;08;08 - 00;00;45;26
James
Welcome to Lattes & Art, presented by J-Squared Atelier, the podcast where we explore the world of creativity, inspiration and artistic expression. Each episode, we sit down with artists, curators and visionaries to explore the power of art in our lives. I'm your host, James William Moore. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Nancy Norbeck to our show. Nancy is a master of certified kiss and Muse creativity coach, a soul collage facilitator, and novelist, and a tutor based in new Jersey with an MFA in Creative writing from Goddard College.

00;00;45;27 - 00;01;15;28
James
She's spent her life exploring creative expression from fiction to acting to singing. Nancy's mission to help people reclaim their creativity and silence that inner critic that keeps us from making art. Her project, Make Bad Art, is a liberating approach to creativity, encouraging us to let go of perfectionism and embrace the joy of artistic play. If you've ever hesitated to create because you feared it wouldn't be good enough.

00;01;15;29 - 00;01;25;16
James
This episode is for you. So grab your favorite latte, settle in, and let's get started.

00;01;25;18 - 00;01;45;24
James
Hey, everybody! On today's episode, I have Nancy Norbeck back with me. She's the creator of Make Bad Art. And honestly, how many of us are afraid to Make Bad Art? Nancy, thank you for joining me today. Could you just introduce yourself so the audience kind of knows where you're coming from and who you are?

00;01;45;26 - 00;02;07;22
Nancy
Absolutely. And thank you so much for having me. So I am a master certified Kaizen muse creativity coach, which is a lot of words to say that I am someone who helps creative people who get stuck to get unstuck again, which could mean anything from somebody who's never really done anything creative but wants to to figure out what that is and how to get started.

00;02;07;25 - 00;02;29;29
Nancy
To someone who has an established creative practice and has suddenly hit a block and can't figure out how to get around it. Anywhere along that spectrum, I can help you to get around whatever is getting in your way. And I say around because people think that you have to get through a block, but you do not actually have to destroy the boulder, you just have to get around it.

00;02;30;01 - 00;02;45;13
James
We all have those boulders, don't we? We find them in life. They could be every day. It could be when we're in our studio. I think it's interesting that you're able to coach in this. What does that look like? How does that play out?

00;02;45;17 - 00;03;05;17
Nancy
Mostly good coaching is asking a lot of questions. Hearing things that people say that they don't realize that they're saying. Because a lot of the time, and this is true in all of life, it's not just true in in a coaching environment. A lot of us really know more than we think we do about what's going on with us.

00;03;05;18 - 00;03;28;04
Nancy
We just don't listen to ourselves. We don't listen to the comments that we make in casual conversations. We don't listen to the things that we hear in our own heads. Or if we do notice them, we say, yeah, that's not it. You know, we come up with a reason to ignore it. You know, to discount it. Because probably someone told us that we were wrong.

00;03;28;06 - 00;03;49;06
Nancy
And so we don't trust our own voice anymore. We don't, you know, we don't think that we know the answers. We don't think we're smart enough to know the answers. A lot of the time, we actually do have more of the answers than we think we do. Generally speaking, a lot of people are able to come up with a lot of things that they don't realize they can come up with.

00;03;49;07 - 00;04;12;05
Nancy
And then, you know, beyond that, I have all sorts of tools and information and things to help you become aware of, okay, this is how this block works, and here's what you can do about it. And you know, other things to to help you kind of get back into that playful kid energy, which is a lot of what Make Bad Art is about.

00;04;12;05 - 00;04;22;08
Nancy
Imagine that. That helps you get back into the space that you really want to be in that one way or another. You were taught or trained out of letting yourself go too.

00;04;22;10 - 00;04;47;28
James
I love that you went to Kid Energy. Because when I was looking through your website and when I was kind of digging into what your program is about, it hit me that it's like I get to be childlike, I get to be a kid again. And is there something about our education, our careers, these things that sort of untrain that as well?

00;04;48;01 - 00;05;16;17
Nancy
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially, you know, if you watch little kids especially really little kids, because it starts to get trained out of us a lot sooner than you might think. And I watched my older nephew is 12 now. I watched him when he was six, start to have a perfectionistic fit when he was trying to draw a Mickey Mouse Christmas train on the dining room table, and what he was drawing was not good enough for him.

00;05;16;17 - 00;05;35;24
Nancy
And I was going, oh my God, you're only six. You know, it's like, this isn't you're not old enough to be doing this to yourself yet. You know, so by six, if not sooner, it can start. But generally speaking, when you're still around 3 or 4, you're in that place where your ideas are just going to come out of your head and you don't care what anybody else thinks of them.

00;05;35;24 - 00;05;54;10
Nancy
I mean, you can build some completely random looking thing out of Lego and walk up to someone because as he did to me a couple years before and hand it to them and say, this is a cake. And, you know, adult me is looking at it going, I ain't never seen no cake that looked like that. And yet, you know, my response to him came straight out of improv.

00;05;54;10 - 00;06;05;23
Nancy
And I said, well, yes, of course it is, because I wasn't going to destroy his illusion. Why would I, you know, a somebody else would have looked at him and said, that doesn't look anything like a cake. What are you thinking? And that's where it starts.

00;06;06;00 - 00;06;22;06
James
I so agree with this because I for a very long time, I was in the corporate world and did finance and was in that realm as an executive. And I always joke that I wasn't that CFO.

00;06;22;09 - 00;06;22;19
Nancy


00;06;22;23 - 00;06;52;10
James
Because I would, I would try my darndest to be creative, not with accounting but creative. How you engage with employees, how you can get the ownership of the company moving in the same direction. But when you're told no, that's a bad idea or it's a dumb idea, suddenly, right? We start to pull back from trying to be creative.

00;06;52;11 - 00;06;57;11
James
How does making bad art help us get back to that?

00;06;57;12 - 00;07;29;19
Nancy
Well, I think just for a start, if you have access to a small child, you already have a grand master in your life. And if you are not sitting down and learning everything you can from that Grand Master, you are missing out on a golden opportunity. Because if you watch little kids when they are really in that flow, which 99% of the time they are, you will see how they just do not stop themselves.

00;07;29;19 - 00;07;55;02
Nancy
They do not interrupt that process. They run with it. They are the embodiment of that improv principle of. Yes. And they just they just go. And most adults who watch that sit there and marvel at it because we've lost it. Seriously. I'm sure that people who have listened to me on my podcast and other places will be tired of hearing me say this, but I say it this often because it's true.

00;07;55;03 - 00;08;17;20
Nancy
They are fabulous teachers. Any time you get a chance to spend time with a young kid, take it. That's that's the first thing. And so Make Bad Art is really about getting back into that energy and saying, I don't have to do this perfectly. In fact, I can sit here and I can deliberately decide that I'm going to do it badly.

00;08;17;20 - 00;08;44;28
Nancy
I can turn the whole enterprise on its head from what every teacher and adult in my life ever told me I was supposed to do. And as soon as I do that, I shut up all of the voices that they installed in my head because they don't have anything to say. They only have something to say when I'm trying to do something well, or heaven forbid, perfectly, because they are in there to tell me how perfectly I am not doing it right.

00;08;44;29 - 00;09;01;10
Nancy
If you think about every time your inner critic has ever talked to you, it's telling you what you're doing wrong. But if your goal is to do it wrong in the first place, your inner critic is just sitting there going, I got nothing, you know?

00;09;01;15 - 00;09;25;10
James
Well, in how many times when we do something and we make a mistake, like we try to do whatever a drawing or a math problem for our school and we make a mistake. There's a learning process in that, if we allow ourselves. Is that sort of the concept that you bring to this, that we can learn from these bad pieces of art?

00;09;25;12 - 00;09;31;14
James
Or is it more liberating to let our minds find that creative space?

00;09;31;20 - 00;09;54;26
Nancy
It's both really. I mean, I'm usually going at it from the liberation angle, but I don't think that you can do I don't think you can intentionally Make Bad Art without learning something from it in the process, because you are allowing things to happen that you would not ordinarily allow to happen. I mean, it's an inherently experimental process.

00;09;54;26 - 00;10;14;18
Nancy
When you sit there and you go, whoa, hey, I didn't know this was going to happen. You know, I just set out to do this thing badly because the surprising and really, really counterintuitive thing about making bad art is that you can end up making really good art when you set out to do it badly, that you can end up sitting there going, whoa, how did I end up with this really good thing?

00;10;14;18 - 00;10;30;20
Nancy
And that's where the danger actually happens, because you can psych yourself out and say, oh, I'm going to go do some bad art because I know it's actually going to turn out to be good. And then then you've broken the spell. Then then it's, you're in, you're in no man's land, then it's it's not going to work.

00;10;30;22 - 00;10;52;06
James
It was interesting when I was looking into your, your program and figuring out how it sort of plays out. And I teach art and I teach photography, and I think the biggest struggle I run into in the classroom is with the very first assignment. And I haven't specifically called it, you know, Make Bad Art, but it's like, take a picture.

00;10;52;07 - 00;11;22;19
James
How do you know where the creativity is going to come from until you take that first picture? And I have found that most students are so afraid of failure that there are free trade to try. Do you have ways to push or welcome them in? I don't want to have it sound negative, but how? How do you overcome when that's ingrained?

00;11;22;22 - 00;11;49;11
Nancy
It can be a real challenge because you know it's first of all, you have the challenge of using the word perfectionism or perfectionist itself, because some people take that, you know, being a perfectionist as a badge of honor. In which case you're going to have a really hard time convincing them that they might be getting in their own way because that's, you know, I mean, we had a car commercial there for a while, the relentless pursuit of perfection.

00;11;49;11 - 00;12;12;00
Nancy
So that held it up, among other things, many other things. It's everywhere in our culture, but that held it up as this great ideal. Right? So what do you what do you mean? I shouldn't pursue perfection? Well, I mean, you can you can aim high, but you don't want to drive yourself completely crazy with this, which you can easily do and you don't want it to get in your way.

00;12;12;00 - 00;12;37;19
Nancy
So. So that's the first hurdle that you have with that kind of person. But then you have the people who don't realize that they're perfectionists, and that is a large percentage of the population. And I'll be honest, I did not realize that I was a perfectionist until I took Kaizen Muse coach training because I thought that in order to be a perfectionist, you had to be the kind of person who had to have the towels folded the right way.

00;12;37;21 - 00;13;00;07
Nancy
And, you know, the the cans in the cupboards all organized in exactly the way that they had to be. And that is not me. And so I was absolutely convinced that I could not possibly be a perfectionist. And then the mentor coach that I was working with because she kept saying, are you sure? I was like, yeah, lady, are you come on, leave me alone, as I'm sure.

00;13;00;07 - 00;13;21;21
Nancy
And and she finally said, are there things that you don't start because you're so sure that you won't be able to do them well enough that there's no point in doing them at all? And I just went, oh, I. And I, you know, very long pause. And I said, yeah. Okay. I think maybe I am a perfectionist.

00;13;21;21 - 00;13;44;13
Nancy
Hi. Nice to meet you. Because it hides that way. You don't recognize it because, well, I'm not I'm not doing the insanely perfectly detailed thing, so I can't possibly be a perfectionist. Right. But it's when it's when you get stuck on. I have to have the right tools. I have to do it the right way. I have, you know, all of these things.

00;13;44;13 - 00;14;05;25
Nancy
And and perfectionist perfectionism always thinks that there's a right way. And it really came home to me when I was talking about this course with someone shortly before I offered it the first time, and they said to me, but what if I don't Make Bad Art the right way? And it caught me off guard because I was like, but it's bad art, you know?

00;14;05;25 - 00;14;37;00
Nancy
And then all of a sudden I was like, oh, wait, wait wait wait wait, no, you are a perfectionist. And therefore you think there has to be a right way. There's no there's no wrong way to Make Bad Art. It's okay, it's okay. Just just jump in and make it. But as someone who overthink this stuff myself, there many, many times in the course where I will say to people, I'm giving you 30s to think of this thing so that you don't sit here for the next ten minutes stewing over the right name for your inner critic, or the right thing to put on this list.

00;14;37;00 - 00;14;58;18
Nancy
30s tops. It's all you get. First thing that comes to your mind, write it down. That's the name. It's good enough because otherwise, yeah, people. People will just get so hung up on all of those little details that really don't matter. It was interesting because by the end of the course, some of them were like, set a timer, set a timer so that you don't overthink it.

00;14;58;18 - 00;15;00;03
Nancy
I was like, good, good.

00;15;00;03 - 00;15;21;28
James
Well and overthinking, I mean, that has stopped so many of us from really achieving who we are. This block happens and not just in creativity but within some relationships within all of this other stuff. So there's a piece of this that really is applicable to more than just.

00;15;21;28 - 00;15;22;18
Nancy
Oh yeah.

00;15;22;23 - 00;15;24;26
James
Make an art. How does that play out?

00;15;24;26 - 00;15;46;02
Nancy
It's interesting because, you know, someone asked me when I was still putting the course together shortly before I offered it. You know, they were like, is this a course about perfectionism that works through art, or is this a course about art that also tackles perfectionism? And I was like, yes, yes, it's a course about everything. It overlaps completely.

00;15;46;06 - 00;16;09;21
Nancy
You do not need to be an artist to take this course. You do not need to be a perfectionist to Make Bad Art. It will all work together completely. It's not two separate things. And in the same way, you know, it's it's not really a course about art. It's a course about life and about liberating yourself from all of the judgments and the shoulds and the is there a right way to do this that happened inside your head?

00;16;09;21 - 00;16;13;14
Nancy
Because all of those things are in there, happening more often than you think they are.

00;16;13;14 - 00;16;42;14
James
Well, and I think it's interesting you saying that, you know, it's not about art, it's a conduit. And I think something that we lose as we become more perfectionist is that creativity gets locked out. And, you know, that goes back to childhood, right? We are free to play and pretend and do these things that we have this, this imagination that we thrive in.

00;16;42;19 - 00;16;56;09
James
But then once we lock that out and so someone coming to this, they don't need to be an artist. But aren't we kind of all artists. Yeah. We just can't admit it.

00;16;56;11 - 00;17;29;20
Nancy
Or we've been told we're not and we believed it or we defined ourselves out of our creativity. You know we have something that we do that for some reason we don't believe is creative because someone told us it wasn't or someone told us we weren't good at it or whatever. I mean, so there was one person in my course who who came in that first time and said pretty much right away when she introduced herself that, you know, she was there because she wanted to get rid of her perfectionism, but she also signed up because she wanted to see if I could prove to her that she was creative.

00;17;29;20 - 00;17;50;27
Nancy
And I thought, well, this could be interesting. You know, no pressure here. Like, because sometimes when people say that they that they believe that they're not creative, they are really, really dedicated to it and they are going to make it hard for you no matter what, because they're so dedicated to it, even though you know that under they're there because you can't be human and not be creative, you are solving problems all the time, at the very least.

00;17;50;27 - 00;18;09;10
Nancy
And so I thought, well, okay, this is going to be interesting. She proved it to herself within the first half hour of the course. When we did our first exercise. So that made my life very easy. I was very relieved. But then it turned out later that, you know, she had done a lot of improv and I was like, explain this to me.

00;18;09;10 - 00;18;29;10
Nancy
I mean, I did not put her on the spot in the class, and I haven't had a chance to follow up with her about it yet, you know? But I'm I'm dying to know. But I think probably she defines or has historically defined before the class creativity as something like painting or music or something. And since that's not what she did, she didn't consider it creative and assumed that she was not.

00;18;29;10 - 00;18;45;21
Nancy
So, you know, people do that. They they define it in a certain way and they tell themselves that they're not that, therefore they're not creative, even though they absolutely are. You know, she also loved to cook. And like, you can't tell me that cooking is not creative. It totally, absolutely is.

00;18;45;26 - 00;19;21;21
James
The idea that art gets labeled painting sculpture. You know, something very specific. Writing is creative. It is an art. Right. The kitchen you are creating, it is an art. All of these things. Right. We as humans have inside of us the ability to create. Absolutely and to be creative. Going back to my classroom I have these students that are coming through and because it's an art class I tend to end up with many that are not artists.

00;19;21;21 - 00;19;33;03
James
They're taking Stem classes, they're going after a nursing degree, all of these different things. And they're the first ones to go, oh, I'm not creative. I'm just here for the credit.

00;19;33;06 - 00;19;55;14
Nancy
And yet having having been and still being a choir geek my entire life and, you know, spent four years in my college choir, I can't even tell you how many engineers we had in my college choir. I mean, there is a massive overlap between engineering and choral singing and probably other musical pastimes. I mean, there is a huge overlap there.

00;19;55;14 - 00;20;08;13
Nancy
So you can't tell me that engineers aren't creative, and frankly, you can't tell me that they're not creative, even if they weren't singing in choirs, because engineering is incredibly creative. You can't. These people are inventing things. It's a creative field.

00;20;08;16 - 00;20;30;27
James
You know, with education, right? The idea is to have the individual think critically. This critical thinking process. But has there been a breakdown somewhere in that that from critical thinking to creative thinking for me they always felt similar and that now finding ways to solve a problem.

00;20;30;27 - 00;20;52;21
Nancy
Yeah. And yet you know like we separate out Stem and yet I think I've seen it as steam when you put Art back in there and I know like, you know, there are engineering programs where they bring artists in to help learn, you know, certain kinds of drawing because it helps engineers design better, you know, which whichever field of engineering it was, I don't remember anymore.

00;20;52;22 - 00;21;14;08
Nancy
I think it was civil engineering where I read about it. You know, it helps them design better stuff when they understand art principles. We separate this stuff out artificially because especially when it comes to things like government funding. Right? We we want to fund science and engineering because we need more scientists and we need more engineers. But we get better scientists and engineers when they also study art.

00;21;14;08 - 00;21;15;28
James
They're more rounded, right?

00;21;15;28 - 00;21;18;01
Nancy
Because we're all full human beings.

00;21;18;01 - 00;21;47;26
James
Our brain gets utilized for more than one thing in that space of art. Creation is regenerative. It's relaxing, it's therapeutic. It's all of this other stuff. But it's still creative, right? It just doesn't stop. I want to ask a question about imperfect action. We're all imperfect, but how can making bad art help us past that imperfection that we see in ourselves?

00;21;47;26 - 00;21;50;06
James
Can it get us past that?

00;21;50;06 - 00;21;51;28
Nancy
What exactly do you mean by past it?

00;21;51;29 - 00;21;59;23
James
Not that it will ever go away, but will it help us process and work around it, or embrace it?

00;21;59;25 - 00;22;20;10
Nancy
Yeah. Okay. I don't think you really want to get around it so much as you want to accept it and work with it, and that definitely is something that the process of making bad art does. Because first of all, you see that, you know, you're experimenting and out of experimentation can come these amazing things that you weren't expecting.

00;22;20;14 - 00;22;42;09
Nancy
But you also see that the world does not end when you make a mistake. You've learned something from that mistake. You know, kind of like that often quoted Thomas Edison line about, you know, I haven't failed. I've made, you know, found 10,000 ways that don't work. You're learning something every time. And you might actually find that one of those so-called mistakes ends up being something that you use later on.

00;22;42;13 - 00;23;01;03
Nancy
You know, I had an English teacher in high school who always said, you know, always date and save a draft because you never know when you're going to pull it out later and say, oh, wait, this thing that I thought was junk is actually the starting point for this other thing. So, you know, all of those things. So yeah, some of them might end up being actual total trash.

00;23;01;03 - 00;23;20;22
Nancy
You know, the cupcakes that you burned that are inevitable. I think you should probably trash those. But still, you know, the world will end. Even if they were for somebody's party, something else can be done. Maybe they just weren't supposed to be there and you were supposed to focus on somebody else's dessert. It's okay. Nobody died because you screwed up the cupcakes.

00;23;20;24 - 00;23;40;18
Nancy
You know, it's okay. And you're still okay. Your worth was not tied to the cupcakes that got burned, or that you put the salt in instead of the sugar. And that's really the thing. Like when you start to embrace your imperfection and be okay with making mistakes, you realize you are good enough and you were always good enough the whole time.

00;23;40;18 - 00;23;47;06
Nancy
And your worth is not tied up in all of these external things because you are okay and you always were well.

00;23;47;06 - 00;23;52;28
James
And that feels sort of like what I deal with with those students that are afraid to take that first picture.

00;23;52;29 - 00;23;53;12
Nancy


00;23;53;12 - 00;24;22;16
James
And then when they do and that might be an all white or black frame because they didn't have the settings. Right. Is it a mistake. Right. How do we define that. Right then. Embracing that. There's so much information that is coming from what you just did by making that image, whether it's black or white or an actual picture, there's some much in there to learn and build on and have more creativity.

00;24;22;22 - 00;24;32;24
James
Is there a hope that as we make the bad art that that helps us in all those other areas of life, relationships, work?

00;24;33;01 - 00;24;54;06
Nancy
Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, when when you're talking about that first picture, it's reminding me of when, when I was teaching middle school and high school and, you know, I'd get the kids who they didn't want to write the first draft in the first place because they didn't want to write at all. And then once they had it, they'd say, why do I have to revise this?

00;24;54;09 - 00;25;11;13
Nancy
I'm like, well, because you can always make it better, you know, because they thought I wrote it. Now I'm done. The thing is, like, you know, and Lamott talks about writing shitty first drafts because until you have the shitty first draft, you don't know what you have. Once you have it, you have something you can work with and you can turn it into something else.

00;25;11;13 - 00;25;32;09
Nancy
And I think, you know, it's kind of the same thing everywhere else, right? You have that relationship with somebody and maybe it's kind of not so great right now, but you can look at it and say, this is what I have, and how do I turn it into something better? And if I screwed up this particular moment with this person, okay, it wasn't perfect.

00;25;32;09 - 00;25;55;14
Nancy
It didn't go super well. But now what can I do to make it better? And maybe the answer is you let it sit for a while, and maybe the answer is you figure out what you actively need to do about it. Maybe the answer is somewhere in between. You know, it. It depends. I mean, I think I think really when you get in there and you start to say, it's okay to make mistakes, I can deliberately make mistakes and I will survive them.

00;25;55;14 - 00;26;31;26
Nancy
So when I accidentally make mistakes, I'll survive them too. And I can learn from them and I can look at situations with a clearer head, because I'm not beating the crap out of myself with all of those voices that were put into me by other people who meant well, but still installed unhelpful voices in my head, you know, and I can, I mean, and they're never going to completely go away, but they can get quieter, you know, and I can sit there in a more reasoned way or a calmer way and look at the reality of it, instead of looking at all of the chaos of all these voices shouting in my head to sit

00;26;31;26 - 00;27;01;02
Nancy
back and say, okay, this is the situation, what can I do about it? And what do I want to do about it? You know, it just helps you look at life in a way that feels much more what's the right word? Calm. I guess liberating is a good word and calm and in control. Like, like you can actually sit there and make the choice instead of the voices in your head, compelling you to do things that you don't necessarily want to do that aren't the wisest thing for you to do.

00;27;01;03 - 00;27;14;22
James
So with this calming and liberation that can come through this, the voices aren't disappearing, but are we gaining more control over what we let affect us through this?

00;27;14;22 - 00;27;28;03
Nancy
Yeah, yeah, because you can sit back and you can look at it and just be like, okay, you know, is this more bad art? Is is my life really about bad art? Because that is one way you can start to look at it.

00;27;28;05 - 00;27;55;22
James
Well, and I think to so many times many of us struggle with who we are, which lets those voices up there. We don't see ourselves as successful. We don't see ourselves as the, you know, the genius at the office or the genius at the school, or and we just let that voice or voices start pulling us away from what our core was originally.

00;27;55;24 - 00;28;11;06
James
I really like the idea of that art. Like let's make mistakes. Let's just see what gets created. Can you talk us through a little bit about what the program does for us to help guide us through?

00;28;11;06 - 00;28;35;07
Nancy
That is a six week program. And each week there's a two hour call. So we spend a lot of time actually interacting on the call. And two hours is a fairly decent chunk of time to spend on a call. So we do break it up a little bit so we get a chance to get up and move. But I make sure that we do actually Make Bad Art on every call because obviously, I mean, it's in the name, right?

00;28;35;09 - 00;28;56;10
Nancy
And and so you've got to actually have that chance to, to experiment on the call and see other people experimenting with it. And honestly, being in the group is part of the magic of it. When you are swimming against this cultural tide that's telling you that everything you do and are should be perfect. It's so much easier to do that when you're not doing it alone.

00;28;56;11 - 00;29;11;25
Nancy
There's magic of being with other people who are also saying, yeah, you know what? I'm not only going to be as perfect as you say, I'm going to deliberately not be perfect, and I'm going to go over here and I'm going to, you know, stick my thumb in the middle of the painting just because I'm going to stick my thumb in the middle of the painting.

00;29;11;25 - 00;29;27;01
Nancy
You know, you have that community where you can actually feel really, really safe doing the intentionally bad thing, which on your own is a lot harder to do because you've still got those voices in your head and you don't have the presence of other people to help drown them out.

00;29;27;06 - 00;29;29;12
James
So safety in numbers.

00;29;29;19 - 00;29;30;13
Nancy
Exactly that.

00;29;30;13 - 00;29;35;04
James
Psychology. It's like we're in this together, and it almost feels rebellious.

00;29;35;06 - 00;30;01;01
Nancy
Exactly, exactly. Even if it's just, you know, a handful of people, it's enough to create that sense that it's not just you and and it's it's the few of us, if it's just a few, even against the world, and there is so much power in that. So we create that safe container to sit there and just say, that's a stupid, arbitrary rule, and I'm not going to do it.

00;30;01;06 - 00;30;02;07
Nancy
And.

00;30;02;10 - 00;30;02;24
James


00;30;02;27 - 00;30;32;04
Nancy
You know, and that's really, you know, like the core energy of it, but I also present, you know, different ideas and information about them, which makes it sound like I'm lecturing all the time, which I try very hard not to do. But there's awareness around different topics that really help to understand, you know, like, let's look at permission because a lot of this is about us not giving ourselves permission to deliberately make a mistake, you know?

00;30;32;04 - 00;30;54;14
Nancy
So so where did this stuff come from? And for everybody, it's different. You know, for some things it'll be the same. But for a lot of it it's different, you know, how does permission work for you? And we'll spend some time looking at that and doing some activities around that. And, you know, so that is that way with different topics every week and lots of different activities to go with it.

00;30;54;19 - 00;31;02;20
Nancy
I want it to be as much fun as possible, but I also want to give valuable information that makes the process easier and will stick with people.

00;31;02;20 - 00;31;12;24
James
And it feels to not so much lecturing as it is guiding. Yeah, you're not saying, here's the pathway we're going because. Right.

00;31;12;26 - 00;31;15;15
Nancy
I'm not a cookie cutter pathway kind of person.

00;31;15;15 - 00;31;16;15
James
And it's funny.

00;31;16;15 - 00;31;17;22
Nancy
Here's what you need to know.

00;31;17;22 - 00;31;31;12
James
In my class. Again, you know, I keep going back to this because all of this is just like driving a home. If we can break this down for these people because they'll come to me, what should I shoot?

00;31;31;15 - 00;31;33;20
Nancy
Because they think there's a right thing. Right?

00;31;33;23 - 00;31;42;17
James
And I'm like, what are you into? Yeah, but what do you like? There's certain things that we kind of have to pull them, don't we. But then we let them loose.

00;31;42;25 - 00;32;00;16
Nancy
Oh yeah. And that's where the fun is. You know when you're saying like what do you like. My first thought is thank you. Standardized testing for making everybody think that they have to do what the test or the teacher thinks they have to do. I mean that's that's like my first thought with that. It's like I have to please everybody else.

00;32;00;16 - 00;32;19;22
Nancy
And there is so much of that. Right? It's I have to find the thing that pleases the other person or that gets the approval from the other person. I mean, so much of that is tied into all of this. That's where the perfectionism comes from, is that that's what's going to earn me the approval that I want or think I need in.

00;32;19;22 - 00;32;26;01
James
That standardized world is gray. Like there's no creativity in it.

00;32;26;01 - 00;32;33;14
Nancy
And it's completely fake. There is no standardized human, no. And thank God for that.

00;32;33;16 - 00;32;42;13
James
Oh, wow. It's amazing that more people don't see it. Why do you think that is?

00;32;42;13 - 00;33;08;16
Nancy
You know, I, I think it's just because we've been given these identities and they're I don't know, part of me wants to say they're predetermined. And I, I think to a degree maybe they are, but not completely. And I'm not sure that that's exactly the right word. But the example that's coming to mind is that there's this amazing book called impro by a guy named Keith Johnstone, who was one of the really big guys in improv in the 70s in the UK.

00;33;08;17 - 00;33;32;24
Nancy
And I read it a couple of years ago, and I still think it's one of if it may actually be the greatest book on creativity ever written. It blew my mind in so many different directions, and I think I highlighted something on every page, if not multiple things. One of the examples that really sticks in my mind is that he talks about how, and I don't have any idea off the top of my head who who did this, if it was a formal study or what it was.

00;33;32;24 - 00;33;54;05
Nancy
But they took a group of bankers and they gave them an exercise to test their creativity as themselves, and they scored so-so. And then they said to this group of bankers, and this was, you know, in the 70s, maybe in the late 60s, because this book was written in the 70s. And then they said, now we want you to imagine that you're hippies and do the exercise again.

00;33;54;05 - 00;34;28;00
Nancy
And the score changed dramatically because suddenly they were imagining that they were someone else in a different role, where they were allowed to behave differently. Same people, same brain, same cognitive and imaginative abilities, totally different scores. It's that same idea, you know, of defining your creativity. When I'm a banker, I'm only allowed to be this creative. But when I'm allowed to believe that I'm a hippie, I'm suddenly allowed to do these things that ordinarily I wouldn't let myself do.

00;34;28;04 - 00;34;42;27
Nancy
And one of the things that he talks about in the book is that he decided early on that he was going to do the exact opposite of everything that a teacher had ever told him to do, which when I first read it, I thought, you can't be serious. You can't possibly literally do that. And yet I kind of think he probably did.

00;34;42;27 - 00;35;01;10
Nancy
And I think it's what made him as amazing as as he was, you know, when he wrote this book, because there are so many other amazing examples in there that, you know, like I said, blew my mind on just about every page. It's there. All these people who tell me that they're not creative. If I did that same exercise with them, I bet I'd see the same thing.

00;35;01;12 - 00;35;35;10
James
And you find success being freed. We're taking that cap off that identity that we've raised ourselves. You know, I'll go back to my classroom again. I teach photography so there's a science, there's a formula. There's all of these things that come to it. And sure we can memorize it doesn't work well but we can memorize it. What I find fascinating is when I get to the point in the semester where I have a lecture that rules are made to be broken, and it's like, sure, you've learned all of these things of how to do something right.

00;35;35;14 - 00;35;56;20
James
Put quotes around it. Now, I'm telling you, throw all of that out the window. What are you going to do? And it sounds similar to what your improv book told them to go do. It's like throw all the rules away. I've told you the rules. Now ignore them. It's just fascinating how powerful the mind can be when we let it.

00;35;56;25 - 00;35;57;11
James


00;35;57;11 - 00;36;05;22
Nancy
In good ways and in bad. Because that powerful mind is what's constraining folks. And as soon as we tell it, it doesn't have to. The results are phenomenal.

00;36;05;28 - 00;36;22;26
James
I love this idea that you bring a group of people together, and let's just Make Bad Art and that you have guided them through it. And you mentioned that it's a six week session. When they've come through this, what can they expect to see on the other side?

00;36;22;29 - 00;36;49;12
Nancy
You know, they they feel looser in themselves in like the best possible way that that was the word that one of them used. And I had them do an exercise that that kind of showed the different areas of their lives. And one of them put that word in every single one of them, like everything was just looser and easier because, you know, the constraints had loosened up and so it was easier to navigate everything.

00;36;49;12 - 00;37;09;29
Nancy
One of them had always thought of herself as a crafter, and realized by the end of the course that, no, she is a fine artist, and she waited until 15 minutes before the end of the last session to tell us this, which was like, really? And she had been approached by the incoming director of a new gallery in her town with.

00;37;10;01 - 00;37;20;02
Nancy
She didn't go looking for her. This person came to her about putting her work in the new gallery, and I was like, you waited to tell us?

00;37;20;04 - 00;37;42;16
Nancy
But, you know, that's the big thing that came out of the course for her, among other things, you know. But but she, you know, she was super excited about creating things. She was dreaming up things all the time. I mean, even in the first week, she said, just spending a couple minutes a day making some kind of bad art had opened up all sorts of other ideas for her.

00;37;42;16 - 00;38;01;08
Nancy
And that's the idea. You know, when you get in there and you let yourself do something badly, you open up all of the circuits that want to play with other stuff. It's it's really it's doing it badly opens up the play, opens up everything else. And in general, they also just started having more fun. Everything became more fun.

00;38;01;08 - 00;38;13;29
Nancy
And that is old life wide thing. That's not just a creativity thing. So everything became more fun and they they started saying that pretty early on too. And that was something else they said at the end, it's like just having more fun.

00;38;13;29 - 00;38;33;13
James
And this isn't just for artists knows this for anybody. That is just amazing. Nancy, as we're wrapping this up and we've been through this amazing journey of the idea of bad art, what can you leave with us to kind of mull over why that art is so important?

00;38;33;17 - 00;38;58;17
Nancy
I think it's just because it gets you out of your every day thought process. It gets you out of all of those places in your life where you're told that you have to do the thing the right way all the time, that there is a right way, that that way is tied to who you are and how good you are, and that God forbid, you are just way too old to play all of those things that you have been told are wrong.

00;38;58;17 - 00;39;17;07
Nancy
I mean, unless you are an air traffic controller or the brain surgeon who's going to cut my head open, those things are wrong. If you're an air traffic controller or a plane surgeon, I really want you to be very, very perfect while you're working on me. And then go home and play. But, you know, you you need to let go.

00;39;17;10 - 00;39;35;04
Nancy
You need to go have fun. Especially if you have kids. For the love of God, go home and play with your kids. They will love it. You will love it. It will do so much for all of you and you will learn from them. Don't be afraid to let your your kids teach you because they will. But mostly don't.

00;39;35;04 - 00;39;46;21
Nancy
Don't be afraid of the mistake. Don't be afraid to do it badly. Doing it badly and making the mistake can be the keys to some of the greatest things in your life, if you're just willing to let them.

00;39;46;21 - 00;40;08;04
James
I love that Nancy has sessions of Make Bad Art, and there is another one starting up soon, so definitely check out the show notes for all of the links to this and other projects that Nancy is working on. But Nancy, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

00;40;08;07 - 00;40;11;27
Nancy
You are so welcome. I've had a great time.

00;40;11;29 - 00;40;36;00
James
Well, that's it for my latte and this episode of Lattes & Art presented by J-Squared Atelier. A huge thank you to Nancy Norbeck for joining us and sharing her wisdom on creativity, imperfection in the power of making that art. If today's episode resonated with you, take a step outside your comfort zone. Make something messy, playful, and completely unfiltered.

00;40;36;06 - 00;41;04;25
James
In fact, if you are curious and want to check out what making that art is like, join Nancy on one of her informative workshops coming up on March 8th and on March 17th. These workshops are free and will give you a great idea of what you are in for. If you decide to Make Bad Art with Nancy, you can connect with Nancy and learn more about Nick that art through the links in the show notes, including her two upcoming free workshops.

00;41;04;27 - 00;41;22;04
James
And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a fellow creative who might need a little inspiration. Until next time, keep creating, keep exploring. And most importantly, don't be afraid to Make Bad Art.