When a creative confidence crisis hits

Last week was, to say the least, tricky. While I watched the growing likes and love for my latest prints amass on social media, it wasn’t reflected in sales. Not a flicker. I even checked to make sure people were aware that I was selling prints at all and not just posting pretty pictures.

Obviously, at times like this, I start to ponder if I was entirely mad to set off down the path of creativity. Is Poor Impoverished Artist a job title rather than a vocation??Should I have taken that director's job in the DJ industry after all?

And then three distinct events happened, and each one in turn made me realise that yes, I am absolutely doing the right thing and being entirely true to myself.

An artist saw my work in real life and described it as “incredible”.?

This boosted my ego immensely and validated my growing opinion that the tiny screened doom-scrolling internet does my work no justice at all.?

I guess it’s why galleries exist. People need to see them and feel them. I need to work on this.?

I got a repeat order.?

I see a first purchase as a risk that fulfils a curiosity. A second purchase however is a massive pat on the back and telling me I'm doing something right.

I never knew that customer retention would feel quite so good.?

An email arrived that made all the difference.

Cutting a long mail short, someone who had been gifted one of my prints for Father’s Day wanted to let me know that he’d been following my progress for twenty years and thought I’d like to know how much my work meant to him and a great many others. And he's not the first either.

It seems that I've impacted positively on lives and made a difference. Wow.

Although it doesn't pay the mortgage, this is worth more than any amount of money to me. ?

So from giving serious thought about picking up a job application form at my local DIY chain (I could do with the staff discount), or pot washing my way up the chef ladder as a late mid-life crisis (seriously, I did), my feet are firmly grounded again.

My work is good. People like it. And it matters. People said so. And that’s all the incentive I need.?

I'm allowing myself this wobble because I know it's just me being a typical needy creative. But now is the time to dig in and work out how to make people click "like" and then "buy".