How to be a beginner
A perfectionist's guide to trying something new.
A True Life Built is a living photo essay on starting over and building a truer life. It’s for anyone, at any age, who is finding the courage to begin again. Subscribe for free weekly posts.
Last week, I ran away to the woods to make art. I joined a friend for a long weekend at The Barn at Boyd’s Mills, a retreat for writers and illustrators who want to curl up in cozy cabins and work un-interrupted. In the mornings, we burrowed under blankets in separate nooks and chased words around the page. In the afternoons, we emerged to wander the wild grounds and eat berry cobbler by the fire.
One afternoon, when my writing focus had fled, I found myself in a whitewashed cabin with slanting light and endless art supplies. It was a studio for illustrators but open to all, adorned with the art of previous occupants. “Leave a print to inspire others,” a sign said. Dozens of doodles were clipped to clotheslines, an endearing mélange of the masterful and the unabashedly amateur.
I rifled through the paints and charcoals while my friend read outside in the sun. I settled on carving linoleum block prints, something I hadn’t tried since high school. I wanted to carve the milkweed pods I’d photographed the previous evening. They were exhaling seed puffs by the thousands, tiny orbs of spun silk. I’d watched, transfixed, as the delicate seeds tugged at their pods, tethered by the finest thread, until they finally broke free and flung themselves into the whims of the wind.
I worked quickly, delighted by the unfamiliar feel of carving, and then ran a test print and went out to show my friend.
“They look kind of like flowering vaginas,” I observed, as we inspected my print.
“They do a bit,” she agreed, in the carefully supportive tone one uses with small children’s art.
“I think I have a real future as an illustrator,” I said, and trotted off happily to make more prints.
Here’s an incomplete list of things I am bad at: pop culture, spatial directions, mental arithmetic, and staying up late. I can sit through entire evenings of trivia without knowing a single answer. I once lost my own car two blocks from my house and found it two weeks later, covered in parking tickets. This set of quirks I have ceded to God and Google; your movie references and cardinal directions will forever be lost on me, please stop trying.
Also on that list: linoleum block printing, painting, dancing salsa, and being bad at things. In this category, I have no one to blame but myself. I aspire to draw and paint and dance, and have dabbled in them all at times, but I can’t seem to get over the awkward beginner’s hump.
Here’s the tricky thing about being good at things: you first have to be willing to be bad at them. I know this learning curve firsthand. I took rubbish photos for years in my 20s, but I loved the process and just kept shooting, and slowly my skill level grew to match my taste. Now I can reliably capture what I want to express, and that is one of the great joys of my life.
When I first started shooting photos, I was blissfully unaware of how amateur they were. At that age, I wasn’t that good at anything yet. Over the years, as my skills matured and I came to enjoy the comfortable glow of competence, my willingness to experiment withered. Once I’d tasted mastery, it was harder to stomach a beginner’s clumsiness. Anyway, I barely had enough time for art as it was—who had time to start from scratch?
So I stayed in my creative lane until a line in the The Artists’ Way drew me up short:
Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have the chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.
When I make this point in teaching, I am met by insistent, defensive hostility. “But do you know how old I will be by the time I really learn to play the piano / act / paint / write a decent play?” Yes… the same age you will be if you don’t. So let’s start.
The same age you’ll be if you don’t… that hit home. I realized that I’d shied away from huge swaths of arts simply because I hadn’t picked them up in my youth. I realized it didn’t matter how old I am, or how awkward my first attempts. Today-years-old is always the right time to learn something new. The learning itself, wandering and whimsical, is the whole point.
When I first picked up a camera, I shot anything that brought me joy—a leaf in the light, a shadow in the street, a child on a swing. I didn’t yet know how to do it well, only that these scenes made my heart sing and I wanted to share that joy with others. I didn’t worry about the end product; the act of attention was enough.
I’ve been photographing light and leaves and children ever since. What if I could apply that same attention, freely and without judgement, to new artistic disciplines? How fine would it be if I could capture the glorious flight of the milkweed in more than one medium?
Back in the quiet forest studio, I turned my full attention to the intricate seeds and the texture of the carving block as sunbeams drifted across the drafting table. Line by line, as the tendrils of clay curled away, the am-I-bad-at-this-voice faded, leaving only a reverent silence. When my carving was complete, I made print after print in different inks, charmed by their imperfections, lost in the beginner’s joy of play.
One of the unexpected joys of starting over has been hearing from others on similar journeys. If something resonates with you, I’d love for you to leave a comment, drop me an email or share a post with a friend!
Liz is a writer and photographer based in Brooklyn. She’s spent her career finding the right words for others and now she’s finding her own.
The kick I needed to try something I said I would start a year ago.
This piece made my heart sing.