Art Club: New Year, New You! 

By Joshua Y'Barbo

Happy New Year! As an artist-in-residence at the TEAM LEWIS Foundation in London, I have designed and delivered Art Clubs across APAC, EMEA, the UK and the US, which included one on New Year's resolutions in January 2022. This month, I'm presenting elements of the New Year New You: New Year Resolutions & Self-Improvement Clichés Art Club. I also curated the TEAM LEWIS Emerging Artist Annual Exhibition in 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, which includes artworks and designs made by recent graduates of Chelsea College of Art, University of the Arts London. So, I've included two works from these exhibitions: DEAR ANXIETY (2021) by Taiwanese textile designer Shannon Cho and Back to the Future, a film still by Christine Gordon from her work, Passing Time (2021). 

Art Club

Now that everyone is back from holidays and doing whatever you do for work (creative or otherwise), I want to share some of an Art Club I wrote and delivered last year. In the spirit of the new year this month, we'll be looking at New Year Resolution and Self-Improvement Clichés based, in part, on this article by Alden Tan (2015), which discusses self-help clichés that do more harm than good. For this Art Club, I thought it would be fun to talk about some of the things we say and do at the start of each year, but most likely don't follow through for many reasons, leaving us feeling disempowered and negative about ourselves. For this Art Club, I began the session discussing clichés on dieting, exercising more and sleeping better before presenting contemporary artists' work and habits, including diet, exercise, better sleep, following your dreams, etc. Today, I want to share our discussion on self-help clichés and thoughts on how contemporary art and art education handle themes associated with self-improvement.  

Theme: Self-Improvement Clichés

While participants worked on a warm-up drawings exercise, I talked about a few self-improvement clichés to get us thinking about the session's content and give everyone something to think about for our discussion on sustainability at the end.

New Year Resolutions are about self-improvement, but it's debatable if putting so much pressure on an arbitrary date, like January 1, actually helps us improve ourselves. No time of year is this set up for loss more perceptible than now. Just look at Blue Monday in January, which is said to be the most depressing day of the year by Sky Travel, Dean Burnette (2012) reported while writing for the Guardian. Blogging for pickthebrain.com, Alden Tan (2015) explains the trouble with the 'unbridled positivity' associated with self-help mantras is the misconception they give us, which ultimately leads us to failure in areas where we hope to make progress and achieve goals. 

I am all for positive thinking, realistic expectations, and tangible goals, so I'll discuss both quickly! As such, the following self-improvement clichés come from a place of overly positive thinking that tends to undermine our own power to make actual, real-life changes to better our lives. According to Tan (2015), one such example is the cliché:

Follow Your Dreams ‘The problem here is that it’s always so easy to talk about wanting to follow your dreams, but the work involved is a lot harder than expected. Worse, the self-help industry has glorified the idea of dreaming. That is why people think they’re already on their way by setting up their vision boards, meditating or reading up on The Law of Attraction. Say instead: Have a dream. Set up a plan. Create realistic milestones. Then keep doing small, incremental things that'd lead you in that direction. Noticed I said "direction" and not destination. It's all about moving forward. Things WILL go wrong and things will change along the way. Your supposed dream may be something else altogether. Embrace that!’ 

As an academic support lecturer at Wimbledon College of Arts, I have written and delivered enhancement workshops on project planning and time management for undergraduate theatre design students. So, planning your workload involves lots of different tasks with different ways of completing them. For example, you could be researching, reading, writing, seeing, experiencing, making, or reflecting on a broad and diverse range of topics and specific knowledge associated with your field and your specialisation. Establishing milestones and planning the pursuit of our dreams is essential because '[…] how we use our time since it is one of the factors that determines our success in achieving our commitments and goals', according to my UAL colleague Emma Shackleton (2022). 

Another of Tan's (2015) bugbears with unrealistically optimistic self-improvement includes doing things that make you feel uncomfortable to break out of restrictive or unwanted habits. 

Get Out of Your Comfort Zone: 'This is true, yet obvious. It's a lot easier said than done. It's kind of understandable to back out at the last moment because you don't feel ready. Say instead: When you're feeling scared, anxious, and downright comfortable, those are the right signs that you've to do something. Hence, you need to erase the self-doubt that comes with the less-than-desirable feelings. You've to do it anyway because it's correct' (Tan 2015).

From an educational point of view, acting on real-life problems or concerns and anxieties to break away from conformity and comfort is part of a reflective and reflexive learning process centred on an individual's circumstances and immediate needs. While as an artist and art teacher, 'doing something' is part of exploring significant subjects, meaningful themes, and personal ways of thinking, reflecting, creating, and acting out through art and design practice. Compared to 'doing nothing', experimentation and potential failure are essential aspects of studying, teaching, and making art because there is authenticity in trial and error when we push past self-doubt and look outside what we find comfortable and familiar. 

One more of Tan's self-help cliche that we say as if it's true but actually causes more harm than good is: 

Get Over your Fears: 'Another easier said than done thing to do. It's too scary! You can't just tell somebody with issues to simply get over their fears and be done with it. Say instead: Understand your fear first, feel afraid and do it anyway. Fear is simply a system to keep you alert. It's what keeps you from impulsively jumping off the building for no reason. […] find the root cause of your fear. Then like getting out of your comfort zone, feel scared and do it anyway. That's the right sign to really grow' (Tan, 2015).

As an artist and art teacher, it's an occupational hazard to experience anxiety and self-doubt about ourselves, our work, and our influence over others. Having studied art practice, history, and theory for over fifteen years, I've learned myself and taught students to take calculated risks in the pursuit of solving meaningful and significant problems in their creative practices. Understanding their fears and anxieties shows students how to pursue innovative problem-solving focused on issues and concerns important to them, thus providing unique insights into more significant global problems with sustainable development. What students and creative practitioners like myself experience on a personal level may lead to substantial changes and innovation on an international scale. 

Speaking of the importance of individual identity and creative exploration coming from a personal place, another self-help cliché Tan (2015) disputes includes:

Just be Yourself: But what if you don't like yourself? What if you don't know who you really are? Say instead: Be yourself… unless you suck. That's a rough quote by Josh Whedon actually. […] if you know there're things about you need to change or want to change, then make those changes already. If you feel lost and lack purpose in life, I strongly suggest you start doing things, getting out there and create real memories for yourself.'

Again, coming from my position as a practising artist and academic, I value my voice and my students' voices and perspectives and support solidarity with my peers, colleagues, and students as an ally. I support decolonising approaches that critique our institutions of knowledge by asking for lost histories unprotected and forgotten by our western, European colonial past. Many of us may need to fully understand how biased our understanding of the world and how we interact with one another is if we have never questioned what history is missing from textbooks, classrooms, lectures, libraries, and archives. Thus, criticising and making demands of our educational institutions to re-emerge lost, individual voices and histories offer us an opportunity to discover who we are and what we stand for. 

Yet another problematic self-improvement platitude is gaining fulfilment and stability by finding and following your passions. 

Find Passion: 'And what's usually followed is, "The rest will take care of itself" or "And you won't work a day of your life." Wrong. Passion doesn't solve all your problems or make life super awesome for you. Say instead: Find passion and be prepared to do the work. It's important indeed to base your art or business around your passion. That's a solid foundation that will take you a long way. Nonetheless, you still need to do the work. That effectively means not feeling good and even doubting yourself from time to time. It's all about taking action' (Tan, 2015).

In a recent chat with an entrepreneurial, former academic friend and colleague, we talked about successful art pedagogy being uncomfortable for students who work through tutor's feedback to improve their knowledge and skills. A teacher's role is to present students with challenges so they develop the resources and learn how to deal with complicated, unique problems. However, art and education offer ample opportunity for the self-doubt that can prevent us from progressing or excelling as we discover new ways to think and work. In teaching art and design, we often use reflective and critical writing techniques to help us find passions and make intelligent decisions about our future or careers. According to the University of Portsmouth (nd), Reflective writing: 

[..] looks back at past experience to perform better in the future; analyses, explores and explains what happened and why; usually incorporates models or theory; considers strengths, weaknesses, anxieties and errors — you can […] talk about observations, emotions and feelings constructively criticising yourself, an event and others; Requires evidence to support what you are saying such as things that have been said or done, their causes and their effects — so you need clear records of the events and your thoughts.

When we doubt ourselves, we need to take action and put in the work to achieve our creative, professional, and life-fulfilling goals. Self-reflection is work we can do to discover our passions, how we are reaching our purposes, and what obstacles to avoid. As part of creative and learning processes, we think reflective as we review and analyse work that we have done. While reflective thinking is developed through writing, which helps us improve our work. So, when approaching any project, be prepared to do the job and know it will take work. Keep a reflective journal that allows you to capture yourself, events, and others as evidence, which you critically reflect on to evaluate your progress towards goals and make decisions about the future. 

The final annoying self-improvement cliché Tan (2015) attacks is the saying: 

Money is not Everything: '[…] people who are always ready to spout this cliché are the same ones who are the least qualified to do so', including '[…] people who have made it and are very successful, thus they mislead people (who do need money) into thinking, for example, that passion is enough and that one shouldn't take up money-making opportunities or make sensible decisions. Say instead: Money is important, but the bottom line is if you want to chase it. […] Just do what you have to do to survive. Yet, remember to stop and smell the roses from time to time. Your happiness is entirely up to you, not money'. 

Money and art go hand-in-hand, with the import art market in the UK worth £2.1bn, according to HM Revenue and Customs, published in the 2022 Art Basel/UBS Global Art Market report. Although that's a lot, the UK art market dropped to nearly half compared to its worth in 2019. See this article by Anny Shaw and Gareth Harris in the Art Newspaper. Our economic stability is vital to why we work and what we receive for our work (creative or other). Other aspects of art, for example, include social values and functions that deliver social impact, which in turn creates value. The Art Market offers high, middle, and low-end markets for makers, thinkers, writers, and creators to operate within and, much like other labour markets, pursue a sustainable living in line with our passions and values. With that in mind, I'd suggest logical, reasoned approaches to critical, reflective writing to review and analyse your work, think about your values, identify problems, respond to your reflection through practical actions, and improve the pursuit of your goals. 

This Art Club continued with participants making mixed media drawings of a new year resolution and self-improvement cliché. At the same time, I talked about contemporary artists' work made about and their relationships with diet, exercise, sleep, and other living habits. I covered a range of contemporary artworks and artists during this part of the session, which I will be available later through public and private content. 

So what? 

When discussing the social impact of the arts, Elenora Belfiore and Oliver Bennet (2008, 2010) attributed the arts’ abilities to educate and self-develop individuals by drawing attention to Aristotle’s early attempts to justify poetry against Plato’s dismissal of Horace’s aims of poetry to please and educate (65-68 BC). While significantly, the Renaissance offers ‘The idea that arts and literature are a means to educate and instruct through pleasure and enjoyment’ (Belfiore and Bennet, 2008, 2010, p. 114). However, according to Belfiore and Bennet (2008, 2010, p. 115-116), ‘Another important strand of thinking that focuses on the educational role of the arts and humanistic culture is represented by theories of Bildung […] first developed in the German context […].’ Typically thought of as first surfacing between 1790 and 1830. According to Swales (1978), the word Bildung implies the generality of culture, the clustering of values […] rather than specific educational attainment. […] Bildung becomes an entire growth process […]’. While in modern terms, we might think of this as self-awareness or coming to terms with who we are. According to Belfiore and Bennet (2008, 2010, p. 123), ‘The moral dimension of Bildung function of art […] becomes more explicit in the claims made for the civilising power of art.’ By discussing self-help clichés and some thoughts on how contemporary art and art education handle themes associated with self-improvement, this session highlighted the importance of reflective thinking and writing when taking practical steps to achieve short-term and long-term goals. So, instead of following platitudes designed to fail, we can take reasonable steps to reflect on ourselves and our situation and make informed decisions about who we are and what we do next. A logical approach to self-evaluation through reflective writing based on your collected evidence will provide you with powerful problem-solving tools for your professional and personal life. 

As an artist and academic support tutor, I want to give you some tips for improving your reflective writing. Keep a journal that you write in often for critically reflecting on your creative growth over time. Either through writing a few sentences each day or dedicating a strategy for written reflection, you will learn to analyse your work relevant, proactive, and developmental way. You may have an ongoing journal that includes all your work or dedicate separate journals for individual projects. Regardless, you must make journal entries regularly and at the start of each project. If you wait until the end, you'll find it difficult to meaningfully reflect and accurately evaluate yourself or your work constructively and productively. Writing and making inform each other, so the more critical reflection you make on your work, the stronger your creative voice will become. Reflective writing is a valuable tool only if it is helpful to you and helps you know where you've been, what's going on now, who you are, and where you want to go next. 

Artist Profiles

Shannon Cho

Shao-Jung Cho is a Taiwanese textile designer based in London. She has always been passionate about handmade crafts. Her most recent MA project focuses on utilising textiles as a medium to convey social issues and achieve social sustainability. She practices mindfulness and storytelling through hand-spun yarn, representing information she cares about through her work. She believes that making textiles by hand can calm people down. In addition, textile crafts are places where people can criticise social injustice gently.

DEAR ANXIETY (2021) by Shannon Cho

Interview 

JY: Please tell me about your practice: What do you make work about? How to you go about making your work? What do you think about when making your work? Do you still make work?

SC: My MA final project was about “Anxiety”. 2019 is the year when the pandemic began, and the whole world started to lock down as we faced the deadly virus. During this challenging time, I came to the UK for the first time to study for a master’s degree. When I was studying, I found that most people face mental issues and thought it was a big topic to which we should pay attention. So, I utilised textiles as my medium to tell the story of my mental changes over 50 days. In my final artwork, audiences can clearly see the degrees of my anxiety through the yarn. The longer the yarn, the more anxious I was. I hope that people can seriously think about this issue. Anxiety is not a disease; everyone may feel anxiety sometimes, and we should embrace and face it properly to make the world better.

You can read the full interview here and learn more about Shannon Cho’s textile design work through her media channels listed below. 

@shannon.textiles

https://graduateshowcase.arts.ac.uk/project/295345/cover

Christine Gordon

Having a gained a degree in jurisprudence at Oxford University and a postgraduate diploma in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, Christine travelled extensively along the Silk Road, China and Tibet before practising as a maritime lawyer in Antwerp and London. Now working as an artist, she is based in both Galway and London. She completed the Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at the City & Guilds of London Art School and graduated in 2021 with a BA in Fine Art from UAL London, Chelsea College of Arts. 

Back to the Future, a film still by Christine Gordon from her work, Passing Time (2021), who currently lives in London and Galway. 

Interview 

Joshua Y'Barbo (JY): What do you make work about, how do you go about making your work, what do you think about when making your work?

Christine Gordon (CG): At the core of my practice is a concern with time, lived experience and spiritual meaning. My work is an attempt to explore my own philosophical questions about transience and mortality; the difference between the materialistic experience of the world and a parallel, deeper, spiritual existence. A primary source of inspiration is landscape, but I am also influenced by Eastern philosophies, especially Buddhism, as well as poetry and literary references. Poetic imagery relies on metaphor, which creates a network of correspondences between things or ideas. I am interested in how an affective response can be generated by this associative linking of simultaneous sensations of feelings, thoughts and memories.

You can read the full interview here and learn more about Christine Gordon and her work through her media channels listed below. 

https://www.instagram.com/christine.gordon.313/

https://christinegordonart.wordpress.com/

References: 

Belfiore, E., and Bennett, O., (2010). The Social Impact of the Arts. Hampshire, UK: Macmillan Publishers Limited. 

Burnette, D. (2012). Blue Monday: a depressing day of pseudoscience and humiliation. On: theguardian.com. Available [online] at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/jan/16/blue-monday-depressing-day-pseudoscience [Accessed January 14 2023)]. 

Reflective writing introduction (nd). Reflective Writing. The University of Portsmith. Available [online] at: https://www.port.ac.uk/student-life/help-and-advice/study-skills/written-assignments/reflective-writing-introduction (Accessed: January 11, 2023). 

Shackleton, E. (2022). Managing Ourselves in Time. Academic Support Workshop. Available [online] at: https://academicsupportonline.arts.ac.uk/system/files/2019-12/Managing%20ourselves.pdf [Accessed September 27 2022].

Shaw, A. & Harris, G. (2022). UK art market: too little, too late? On: theartnewspaper.com. Available [online] at: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/05/04/britains-share-of-the-global-market-is-at-its-lowest-in-a-decade [Accessed January 17 2023]. 

Tan, A. (2015). 9 Self-Help Clichés We Need to Change For Your Own Good. On: Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. Available [online] at: https://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/9-self-help-clichés-need-change-good/ [Accessed January 15 2022].