An Essay on Envy Muppets and Permission Slips and Growing Up

Noticing Emotions

Recently, I found a new favorite artist. Her name is Mia Pensa. She's in Australia and has the most beautiful art! It's tigers and rugs and palm trees and it’s large! So big! It’s all done in an intentionally naive style with masterful color and composition. The woman is in her early 20's. She's been supported in her art since she was young. I love it. It's inspiring, the playful way she uses her materials and her colors. She seems to create in a way that says, "it's beautiful, and it doesn't have to be anything else." No great comment on society. No thesis statement about the world and how it relates, other than her stylistic inspiratoin. It's unapologetically fun. She’s also got a large commission list, shows regularly, and is completely sold out online. She’s a full time artist. 

if I get permission, I'll throw in a pic of her work here :)

I showed her work to my friend, and she said, after agreeing the art is really lovely, ”It's crazy to see people so young already that successful.” Then she added, “Oh, she was supported by her family to pursue art since she was young, that makes sense."

Part of me wanted to not only agree, but to speak up and add, because I have so often felt it in my bones - “I wish I had that. Maybe I'd be where she is now, with the encouragement and (maybe) financial help from my family. Not that they had the ability to give that to me, even if they’d wanted to.” Wow, bitter.

Jealousy and envy, unda tha seaaaa.  - Photo by Julia Uns Tran on Unsplash

But I didn’t say it. I don’t feel that way anymore. I instead said, “I love that for her. It’s so awesome she was able to go right into painting. She has great work, and I can see how she’s grown just in the last 5 years. I love her colors, too. I might steal some of those color palettes.” What? Did I actually say that? Can’t believe such an adult thing came out of my mouth. I sound happy for her success! And I am.

How did I get here? (This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!)

Sometimes other people have all the advantages. They got all the breaks! They have connections! They have money! Supportive parents! A masters degree! Perfect hair! It’s not fair! But that’s life. And you know what, you're right. It's not fair. It’s hard to see others get what you want, whether that’s artistic mastery or the opportunity to attend art school at all. You see them doing much better than yourself. More acclaim. The job you wanted. The financial success. It's also a new challenge as you get older, to see people literally half your age with more success AND more skill. These young people who had support and money and even just the luxury of time to create, probably also got put in all the right rooms, every time. “Not my fault I wasn’t given all that.” That’s what we say, as we look at ourselves in the mirror, promising we’ll find time to paint after our draining jobs and before making dinner. Maybe we'll find time. Probably not. There's laundry to do, too.

"although variety is the spice of life, sometimes it feels like I got all the salt. All of it. Because I get SALTY"

I am a skilled artist. I have built that up over decades of doing art, and hopefully in another 10 years I will look at where I am today and smile at how I thought I was "pretty good." That's how it works. The skill keeps building. But when I was a baby artist, fresh out of college (and to be honest, even 10 years past that) I had some PHENOMENAL peers that were outshining all of us by a lot. You know who you are. And I was mad about it. Not at them. At the world. Some of these people I was acquainted with, some are still close friends today. I would pepper them with questions - how did you do this? How did you get into that gallery? Who do you know? How did you meet them? How do you make so much time to paint and draw? Whose class did you take to learn that? Do you not have to work another job? I straight up made myself a nuisance. It wasn't cute. And nothing came of that, except me trying to justify why I wasn't standing in their shoes. The envy and jealousy didn’t abate. My work improved slowly, but almost in spite of my feelings, not because of them.

-Photo by Caju Gomes on Unsplash

Apples and Olives

No one’s lives are truly directly comparable. We are all apples, oranges, pears, and - well - olives and tomatoes. We are so different. Not just in our background and circumstance, but in our energy levels, skill levels, and drive. Even if all of THAT is the same, we may have different temperaments that make people more or less willing to help us or work with us. Factor in being young, old, male, female, or nonbinary. Now put location in the mix for opportunity bias. I was an apple yelling about not being an olive. It's a wild time to be alive, and although variety is the spice of life, sometimes it feels like I got all the salt. All of it. Because I get SALTY about other people doing better than me. Or, I used to.

The truth is, it doesn't matter why I wasn’t where they were. Some things are luck. Some are circumstance. Some are hard work. They are all contributing factors. None of them had anything to do with me. I thought proximity to them would help, but my bitterness was tainting things. Pretty soon I wasn’t invited to much. I wouldn’t have invited me either, to be honest. I was a little insufferable to be around.

"Don’t shit on yourself and then wonder why you stink."

It took awhile, but eventually I took a long look at myself. I wasn’t putting my work out there in the same way, I wasn’t even able to complete a series yet. Also my skill level was pretty crap right after college. It took a LONG time, even after four years of art school, to get objectively good. Even though I sold a few things, I couldn't make a living without a day job. I couldn't be an "artist" like my friends from art school. It didn’t help that I was born with a chip on my shoulder and a very big streak of contrarianism. Tell me it's hard or I can't do it, and I'll show you how wrong you are. Spite is a good motivator, but it is NOT a good friend maker. Not that I wanted friends. I wanted success. And I had - well, a little of both, but not enough of either to be satisfied. I was scared I would never make it as an artist, and here were people I KNEW PERSONALLY, doing it in their 20’s. I was scared I would fail forever, never understanding where I was lacking. It was all fear. And I was a little monster with it.

So how did I overcome the green-eyed monster I'd become?

I'm just a better person than you.

Kidding. I am still sometimes a small, jealous, sad lil creature. It’s a me problem. And friend, jealousy and envy is always a self-made problem. To live in envy and jealousy creates bitterness and a tendency to look down on yourself as not having enough, not being enough, and the worst part - it all being someone else’s fault, outside of your control. The world is the problem, and you got the shit end of the stick. Could be true. You might be disadvantaged. But you’re not dead. Don’t shit on yourself and then wonder why you stink.

"I was starving myself and angry at the world for eating."

These feelings arose from fear, I realized. I was scared I wasn’t good enough and I projected that on to everyone else in the form of envy and jealousy. It was a confidence issue masquerading as competition. I was measuring dicks with everyone, and I don’t even have a goddamned dick.

For me, the solution was a journey. I was always creating to get as good as so-and-so, or to make money, or towards some other exterior benchmark. I wasn’t creating for me. I was starving myself and angry at the world for eating. So I gave myself permission to eat. To feed myself with my art. Not literally. To feed my soul. This meant facing the fears of not being good enough. I wasn’t, when I started. I wasn’t good enough for the art to be what I envisioned. But at least it was finally meaningful to me. When I did this, honing in on what I truly desired to create and say with my art, those ugly feelings vanished. Why? I think it’s because I started concentrating on myself. I was improving as a person as I improved as an artist. Facing my fears, regardless of the outcome, halted the blame game in its tracks. I had some control, and I had some satisfaction, because now - I had a practice. As I practiced, confidence was a natural byproduct. I also started to define what success looked and felt like, for ME. Not what it looked like in others. When I look at my friends now(because they are my friends, they are nice, good people regardless of what I project on to them), I finally see artists and art I can admire. Not competition. I see people succeeding and things I can borrow from their practices without spiraling out. I can finally, as the tarot card readers say, take what resonates and leave the rest. I can rejoice in finding a successful young artist like Mia Pensa and revel in her use of color, maybe even cop some ideas for myself. It's a different wavelength. One where I can relax and sit WITH my artist friends, not outside of them like an art Gollum, where success in the art world is my precious, precious golden ring.

To do this, I not only had to give myself permission to paint (and therefore feed my soul), I had to prioritize it. Remember that I loved it. It wasn’t an obligation, it was a privilege I’d earned. And I GET to paint for four hours on a Saturday while the laundry waits, because I’m an adult and I do not work all week just to be able to do laundry. Elizabeth Gilbert addresses this beautifully in her book, Big Magic. Permission slips are sometimes necessary, even when you write them yourself. Priorities are what you make them, and a clean house is not more important to me than gratifying my own soul. Neither is having a home cooked meal every night. Some nights are girl dinners of refrigerator surprise charcuterie, and that’s okay - because I’m so happy from painting. My abs are not as tight as they could be. I balance workouts with paint sessions. They are both high priority, they both keep me much healthier mentally.

-from Parks and Rec. Highly recommend for a good laugh.

Dick Measuring Contest

We will never be enough when we measure ourselves with other people’s yard sticks. We can only define and create our own success story, and part of that definition lies in gratitude. I hate the idea of a gratitude journal, it sounds so hokey. But I do love pointing out how awesome my life is, which is the same thing, different name. I have two cats, I have a roof over my head. I have food in my fridge and fresh paper and some paint and friends, and a phone to call them with. I love painting, I’m finally good at it, and I can make time for it. That’s a lot. No matter how much I might want what others have, someone out there would die happy just to have what I am lucky enough to already possess. So, I count my blessings. I say affirmations. I write down what’s going right, the second I start to spiral. I also keep a folder on my phone of screenshots. A digital gratitude scrapbook. They are of all the nice things people have said about me or about my art. I highly suggest doing it for yourself. I’ve collected them from personal texts, social media comments, emails and DM’s. Sometimes you need to hear what you should be grateful for, from someone else. Sometimes I’m just grateful for the compliments whether I believe them or not. Gratitude softens bitterness and hollows out envy. A silly monster with no teeth. Practically a muppet. Envy muppet.

If you are struggling with these feelings, I can’t say they will be gone forever if you just paint/sing/write more. The muppet still tries to rear it's toothless lil head. But the universe is pretty blasé about jealousy. It's so...common. Stagnant. It’s pretty excited about creation and self-actualization. It's movement into the new. So when you create, good things come. When you feed your soul, good things come. Confidence. Calmness. Happiness, even. Try it. Keep your eyes on your own work for a minute. Quit concentrating on what everyone else has that you don’t, practice gratitude, and practice your damn art. Figure out what to say with it, even if it’s - “I’m scared I’ll never be enough.” Then relax friend, because you finally said it out loud.

Some of these things I say to you, are actually meant for me, and that's the way it should be. I write for myself. Take what resonates, and leave the rest. 

Love, Summer