‘It is the artist temperament’

Today I had my grades and feedback for my final project as a student on the foundation degree at SCAT. I spent last night having the most weird and wonderful dreams. In my sleep, I received my feedback in my old university from one of the teachers I worked with in Japan. I woke up feeling as if I had hardly slept. My brain had not wanted to forget today.

Champagne on a school night...

Champagne on a school night…

However, today turned out to be good and the feedback was such that it made me smile, a lot. I did better than I expected. Since this morning, I’ve been walking around on that cloud we call nine, which is a lovely feeling. I think everyone should have days like this.

What I have been sitting on today

What I have been sitting on today

Annoyingly,  by tea time I found the cloud dissipating a little and I started to feel that familiar sense of doubt: what if they are wrong? What if they marked too high? Don’t they know how often I felt sick to the stomach with worry about this project? Do they realise how many tears I shed and how often I said ‘I want to give up!’? Don’t they know how so much of the success of this project was based on luck?

This evening I told my husband about my doubts and negative feelings. His rather quick reply: ‘Isn’t that what they call the artist temperament?’

Despite his instant response, I think he’s made a very valid point. I think that however well I do with my art studies, with the next stage (the top-up to a BA) and with anything else after that (who knows – the world?) I will drag myself along to each graduation day full of self-doubt, a grumpy tummy, and the odd ‘I want to give up’, ‘I can’t do this’, ‘this is too hard’.

I think I am cursed with the artist temperament and I am destined to be like this for the rest of my life.

The ultimate self-doubting artist with a temperament issue

The ultimate self-doubting artist with a temperament issue

How do I feel about this? I can’t imagine being any other way. Doubt fuels my creativity.

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