The Mama Judy and Jill Podcast

Episode 15: The Power of Commitment in Your Art Practice: Exploring Dedication, Balance, and Freedom

• Jill Gottenstrater and Judy George • Episode 15

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Mama Judy read something about commitment to art recently that turned the lightbulb up in a way that gave her a renewed desire to be committed to the entire process of a creative journey, NOT just the easy and fun stuff! 

So this week we decided to explore some different angles of the word commitment – different ways that we hope might spark you to look at how you view commitment, in the general sense, and how you view your commitment to your art.

We hope you enjoy today’s chat!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Book: Creativity from the Inside Out by Cathy Wild 

Artists on Instagram mentioned in episode:
Shawn Petite
Katie Holmes 


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We'd LOVE to hear from you! Click here to send us your thoughts and ideas for a future episode.

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Jill:

Well, hi, Mama Judy. Here we are back for another

Mama Judy:

episode. Oh, I'm so excited this week. Of course, I'm excited every week. So what's

Jill:

new? Exactly. Me too. Well, before we jump into the topic, which I know Mama Judy and I go back and forth texting, calling each other's about topics we want to discuss and whatnot. And this week, Mama Judy. Has something on her heart that she wanted to share. So tell us what we're going to be talking about, Mama

Mama Judy:

G. Actually, Jill, you're right. That's a good way to put it on my heart because I've been thinking about this in relation to myself. After I've read a book and then one of the other artists on Instagram, who I will identify later, brought it up and it's on the subject of commitment. Not only to our art, but to ourselves.

Jill:

Ooh, okay, this is going to be a great one, and I think too, and you may already have this on your mind, but are you thinking about commitment in a way that it's good to have, it's good to have commitments, and then sometimes there's goodness about freedom from commitments. Is that something that your is? Could we talk about that?

Mama Judy:

Yes, we're going to talk about the paradox of commitment. Um, and it is a paradox because you need commitment and yet commitment. to one thing eliminates other things. So yeah, it's an interesting subject. Shall I start?

Jill:

Yes. Let's get started. This is

Mama Judy:

going to be good. Okay. So I've been thinking about this, first of all, like I said, in relation to myself, I love what I do, but I would like to learn and grow in my art. And what I found was I like, I take the easy way. And that's kind of a human trait. Human animals in our DNA, we will take the path of least resistance because human animals really don't like hard work. And that relates to commitment in the fact that About a year ago, I said, you know, I'm really going to learn to draw and to paint more than what I do in my journals. What I found, Jill, is, it was great. I was so enthusiastic about the idea. And then we got, I got into it and, you know, Everything starts out with a great idea and a lot of enthusiasm, but then you hit those bumpy parts, those hard parts, those insecure parts, those things where you go, Oh, why am I doing that? And I found, I will confess, I found with myself, I backed off because it was Hard work. So that's my kind of background on why I've been thinking about it. And I came across the quote. It's not a quote. I don't want to quote this artist. But it's Sean Pettit and she goes by Art Girl 38. She is an artist on Instagram. And she put something out there on commitment. That commitment. is a form of freedom and I thought, wow, I never thought of that. I always saw it as hard work and I have to show up. We all know you have to commit to your art to do daily to get better. But her idea was that when you are consistent and persistent beyond those bumps in the road, then you attain a certain amount of freedom. And let's go back to when you started stitching and you didn't know a lot of stitches, you weren't quite sure what you wanted to do with it. Would I be correct in saying that the more you did it, the more you showed up consistently and persistently and tried new things, you found the courage and self confidence to try even more new things? That is correct. Would that be, is that correct? Yes. So, tell us a little about that process and then I'll go

Jill:

on. And so, just the process to, and, Just getting better or the process to the commitment of that, which ended up helping me to be better in the things that I wanted to be the process

Mama Judy:

of commitment.

Jill:

Okay. Yes. So, number one, because we had a podcast, not too long ago about setting up rituals and routines, and because. That's just kind of what I do in the morning. I set some time aside that for things that are important to me, which I think is big about commitment things that are important to us. We commit to right. Whether it is a doctor's appointment, or it's. Um, self care day or if it's taking your kid to the park or your animal to the vet or whatever that might be. So this was very important to me to make a commitment for this because I could sense the joy it was bringing me and that the mental well being and all of that. So yes, it was actually set pretty easy for me to make a commitment to myself because I already had morning time carved out and I knew how important it was to me.

Mama Judy:

Okay. And then in the process of learning the stitches. In your creative process. Tell us a little bit about how that felt as you learned. What did that do to your commitment to your art?

Jill:

Okay, it grew my confidence. Okay. For sure. So I just became more confident. Oh, I can try something like that I saw over here or I can, if I saw something that inspired me I can say well I can try something like that because I'm trying different things the more that I would build on my Stitches, the types of stitches, the different things I would make up or like look in a book and teach myself how to do it built on there. And then also I would say, so it built my confidence. And with that, I began to experiment on my own with. By learning things that, oh, here's this, this type of stitch that had actual names and I could learn it from someone on YouTube. But then I started just freely experimenting and that's when it gets really fun.

Mama Judy:

That's when the freedom comes. And so your process really is an example, I believe, the way that I interpreted what Shawn wrote in her post. When we show up consistently, it builds confidence. So, commitment is very important for building our confidence, for learning our techniques, and beyond that, it gives us freedom to try new things. So it's like commitment is the first step in that long journey of becoming more artistic. Yes.

Jill:

Wow. The, way that you just put the puzzle pieces together makes sense. And you said too that sometimes it's easy, it's easier to take the easy way out. And maybe that is not sitting down at our tables or wherever you do your art or your kitchen or wherever you're doing your art. Sometimes it's easy, but if you can understand what's to come down the road, that sense of freedom, but I think it's easier when you get a taste of it, don't you think?

Mama Judy:

Oh, absolutely. It's like anything you're learning, when you get a little bit of success and you feel good, you're going to be willing to take the next step. And so I think Sean is correct in that. Persistent commitment is will lead to freedom, freedom to try new things, freedom of, uh, fear of failure, that type of thing. So there's a lot of ways that commitment is very important to us. And it could be in anything, uh, for building. Our process in life, in art, So when Sean said it that way, it made me realize a new way to look at things, to look at the word commitment, because we all look at commitment in the same old standard way. Oh, you know, I gotta show up and do this today. But just like you said, Jill, with her explaining it, what I realized is my commitment is a commitment to the growth of my art. Maybe I knew that before. But the way she said it. Turned the little light bulb on up in my head, and so now,

Jill:

I

Mama Judy:

have a renewed desire to be committed to learning these things. That before I would go, ooh, this isn't as fun as sitting down to my journals, which are so easy to do. It's committing to the hard work. to get beyond the stumbling, knowing that at some point, I guess what I, what happened with Sean's explanation, it went from an intellectual understanding to an emotional understanding. An emotional understanding is far more powerful than intellectual understanding. Yes, which The other thing I want to just remind people, because we have such a wide variety of levels and people and personalities listening to us. The number one thing I think in any topic we talk about at the root of this is self awareness. I became more aware of what I was doing with my art through Sean's statement, the way she said it. And if anything, on anything we talk about hits a person, That's a topic they need to pursue. So self awareness is key. You can't do anything unless you are really aware of yourself.

Jill:

Yes. And okay, so I have a little bit of a flip. I just want to make a little distinction about another way to look at freedom and commitment. I love how Sean put it. And with this new perspective that you have, but also what about the idea of. Allowing yourself as an artist to not being committed to something, or even maybe something very specific in your plans for that day, or, you know, I am full on stitching and then not allowing my commitment to stitching. Rule out other things because I'm so committed to this, I'm not even giving myself freedom to not be committed that in order to explore other things I guess it's just a little bit of a twist of thinking about it off.

Mama Judy:

Great minds think alike because the other thing I wanted to talk about came from, creativity from the inside out by Kathy wildness, a book, and we'll put that in the notes. Okay. And in her discussion, she talked about commitment. restricts you, which is also what you just said. So it's kind of a paradox. It gives us freedom, but it restricts us. And what she meant by that is exactly what you said. If you commit to one specific thing that you're going to do, you are restricting yourself in that you're eliminating all these other possibilities. Out of all of this, first of all, um, let me also interject that when we talk about commitment of any kind, we're not saying at one time, you always have to reaffirm your commitment. You, it's not a one and done. Every day you have to reaffirm your commitment to whatever. It's two things. So I found this idea from Kathy Wilde so interesting because I hadn't thought about that either. It restricts us and it gives us freedom. So it just kind of depends, again, on where you are. If you want to be the best in one particular medium or one particular expression, Then, yes, you are going to have to eliminate all those other possibilities. If, however, you want to commit yourself to learning in a particular area, and it can be broad, it can be, that's why I love mixed media, I can learn so much under mixed media, but if I want to become the best in any eCommerce form of art, then I have to give up the others because to become the best or to become the best you can be, you're going to have to commit to a narrow, narrow path, but that doesn't mean we can't commit to the broad Yeah. world of learning art. So commitment is one of those wonderful words that can just about be interjected anywhere we want.

Jill:

Yes. And also when you said the thing about, if you're going to really focus in and narrow down your focus to one area, you can also say I'm committing 30 days. To go all in on this, and then you can pop out and be more loosey goosey with your commitment to your overall general broad, you know, discoveries with art in that, in your process.

Mama Judy:

That's right. And we can actually look at the word now that we've explored some different angles of the word commitment and we recognize that persistent commitment can lead to the freedom of trying new things. We also recognize that commitment can give us freedom but restrict us and we can be okay with living with all those different paradoxes of that word. Another way to look at it is if we use the word commitment in art as a mushroom. It's the big umbrella in which all of our activities under the word commitment to art are fine. And this is not to say out of all of this that anything is right or wrong. It's just different ways that might spark somebody else to look at how they view commitment or how they view their commitment to their art.

Jill:

Okay. Mama Judy, can I ask you one question first on that one? Absolutely. Okay. Under that umbrella or that mushroom that you mentioned. You said that, you know, you're you as an artist, you're going to have things that fall under that. Can you give us an example of what that might look like for you? what are the various things that might fall under that umbrella or mushroom?

Mama Judy:

Okay. So I probably wasn't real clear on that. I got carried away with my visualizing this giant mushroom or this umbrella. But what I realized for myself is that commitment, there's different kinds of commitment. And my broad commitment is to learning every single day, I will learn something art related. Now that might be, in my journals, a new way to bind them. I might focus on learning a new technique or a way to draw an animal. But all of this... commitment to these different things. And like you said, I might go along and say, okay, for the next 30 days. Well, let me step up. I made a pact with myself. I said, okay, this commitment that you've been talking about and shine away from the hard work. Let's reaffirm that commitment. To your painting and your drawing for the next year with no outcome. I'm not looking to start getting represented in the gallery. This is just a commitment that I want to pursue. That's under art, but also I can do that for a little bit during the day. And then I can say. Oh, but I love this new binding for my journals, and I can commit to learning that. So commitment can not only be the big, big umbrella that encompasses anything we do artistically, but it can be the tiny little restrictive things that we choose at any time to focus on.

Jill:

when you said that, I kind of started having a snapshot of what's under my umbrella or my mushroom. And even last Friday, I took myself on an artist date and I went down to River Arts District here in Asheville. And I went and walked around some studios and looked at art. so that's part of the commitment to myself is to treat myself to, going down and, and seeing other artists work and meeting other artists and being inspired in that way. And that's part of my commitment within that, besides the stitching and all that, I want that inspiration and I want that connection with other artists in the area as well.

Mama Judy:

That's great. And that's exactly it. You know, I used to look at the word commitment and shy away from it because I knew any committing to anything was hard work and these two ladies in their definitions, the way they explain things have opened up that word. I don't feel a negative pull when I hear the word commitment. Now, I view it with excitement. And the last point I want to make about commitment that I hadn't really given thought to was that. Any of this commitment is a relationship with yourself, because if you're doing something, who are you really committed to? Are you committed to some gallery? Are you committed to the neighbor's opinion? I don't believe so. I believe people go into art at any level because it's a commitment to themselves to develop a part of themselves that perhaps they didn't know about. Or if they did, um, you and I both know Katie Holmes, who has been an artist all her life. Well, that commitment to her art is to herself to develop a way of living. And so when I look at commitment in relation to, Ooh, commitment is a relationship with myself. Well, do I value myself?

Jill:

Do I honor

Mama Judy:

myself? And if you say yes, then commitment becomes something that you're willing to embrace, whatever level that is that you want to do it at.

Jill:

Right. And when you said about Katie Holmes, the artist, so she does art for herself, of course, but she makes money. I mean, she's a working artist. And one thing that is like a double commitment for her is she has a strong passion for protecting the earth. And the animals that live on this planet. And so some of her proceeds from her artwork will go towards that. So she's maintaining a commitment to herself as an artist, as well as to the social causes and the environmental causes that are important to her. So you can kind of latch up a couple commitments altogether, which is even better. The fact that, you know, you have that passion. And another thing I wanted to mention is that, isn't it interesting how we will not show up late for a doctor's appointment. Or if we say we're going to be, you know, you go to the dentist to get your darn tooth pulled, we are going to show up 10 minutes early for that dentist to pull out our tooth or whatever it might be. But we don't give ourselves the respect to honor our own commitments. Like you said, we need to consider our own commitments to ourselves just as important, if not more important than a commitment to a dentist or somebody else, in our lives.

Mama Judy:

Absolutely. I think that's probably, one of the most powerful of. of the different views of commitment we've talked about because we're really doing this for ourselves. And even Katie and her commitment, which is tremendous, I've always admired it. to her art from an early age, even beyond the naysayers, knowing that this is what she wanted to do and protect the wilds. It is a commitment to herself and the life she wants to lead. Who does she want to be? So I think that commitment with ourselves is extremely important. And I will always. In the back of my mind that has been planted, even things may have been resting back there in my mind, but now they've come to the forefront where when I sit down or I say, Oh God, I don't want to do this today, but there's really no reason not to do it. I'm going to remind myself, hey kiddo, this is a commitment to yourself. Do you really want to achieve this or do this? So the three things in summary that we've talked about, which is the idea that, consistent, persistent commitment brings a form of freedom. The idea that if you're really committed to a narrow path, It restricts you also, and that any commitment in art is to ourselves first and foremost. Yes. That's important to every single listener out there, regardless of where we are in our own journey or our own process.

Jill:

Yes, and thank you for summarizing that. Those are such three important parts, and there was a quote that I saw in a book that I have here at the house by Gretchen Rubin, who is an author, and she said, when we give more to ourselves, we can ask more from ourselves. Okay. When we give more to ourselves, we can ask more from ourselves. So when we give ourselves a commitment, we can ask more from ourselves in a good way. That's a good thing that we nurture ourselves by making a commitment or choosing to restrict your commitment but we're actually serving ourselves well in that way. And then. I real quick wanted just to mention something what if someone is thinking, I have so many commitments, I don't really have time or space to add another commitment to my life. Although they are yearning to do the art, maybe, or they're not setting up commitments. so I have a fun little exercise for you all to try if you're finding that it's hard for you to commit because you don't have the time, Get a pen and paper out, write a list down of your commitments, whether that's you have commitments to your family, to your children, to your dogs, to your cats, whatever that might be. So you make a civic commitment. volunteer work. Write down all the commitments that you have a job. You know, that sort of thing. And then take a look at that list. And number one, is there anything that you could move down in the importance list, or off the list completely, to allow space for yourself? And I think you will be surprised, even if it's just for a, you know, a year period, you're going to say, I'm going to remove this commitment, of volunteering that I've been doing for 10 years in order to allow myself this time to, work on my art Or you might have a commitment that you're making. They isn't really serving you that well and you can get rid of it if it's a toxic book club or, you know, whatever. I don't know. Exactly. There are things like that that you can get rid of, but it's just really make a list of things and just see where you could fit it in because I think everyone can fit in at least 10 minutes a day of something that is going to feed your soul in this way.

Mama Judy:

And I agree, Jill. And I think that's a perfect example of how we can get over committed. And what I would add to your list is. How many of those commitments, and you kind of said it, are for you or someone else, and then you have to look at it and say, okay, is the commitment to them more important? And sometimes it might be. Or are those, like you mentioned, No, that one's not important. Take that time back and give it

Jill:

to yourself. Or look at that list. What can you delegate? especially as women. I think that we have a tendency to take on all the commitments and think that we need to be in charge of all the details of everything. But there is nothing wrong with delegating something out to someone else. if you have that option,

Mama Judy:

that's an excellent idea. And I think I am going to delegate my art to Michelangelo. All that work, it's a good idea.

Jill:

Yeah, exactly. Well, this is wonderful. We appreciate you listeners beyond more than you even know. We are so grateful. Mama Judy and I hope that this is helpful for you. I know it is for us just talking to each other. We are both learning as we go with this podcast and we're so grateful for you listening.

Mama Judy:

Yes, we are, Jill. Well said, my

Jill:

dear. So until next week, we'll see you then. Mama. Judy, stay committed. I will.

Mama Judy:

Thank you. Love you. Love you too. Bye everyone. Bye.