Mark Pierce - The Creative Wound: Heal Your Broken Art

Praise For The Creative Wound

Simple, powerful, and works like pure magic. I havent read a book that shook me up this much since The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. The Creative Wound: Heal Your Broken Art is a must-readand an essential toolfor creative people across the globe.

Lauren Sapala, author of Firefly Magic and The INFJ Writer

A soothing balm for your creative battle scars, this is a book for anyone who feels they have more to bring to the world but suffer doubt, feel ashamed, or wildly over-think their creativity. It gently equips you to direct your lifes art with purpose and perspective, rather than allowing the pain to write for you. Happy healing!

Andy Mort, musician, writer, and creator of The Gentle Rebel Podcast

Its real, its relevant, its personal, its constructive, its readable, and it is not cheesy self-help! This will be an incredibly important book to many creative people.

Tim Gough, award-winning leadership blogger & author

The Creative Wound is a book that will help you take that vital look inside, and offers great wisdom and practical tips toward rebuilding your creative foundations in a stronger, more positive way.

Rick Jesse, Dogtooth brand & experience design

The Creative Wound

HEAL YOUR BROKEN ART

Mark Pierce

Copyright

Copyright 2019 Mark Pierce

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations.

Design & formatting by www.revelator.co.uk .

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Disclaimer: this book is not medical or mental health advice. It contains information and thoughts you may find helpful, but please seek personalised professional counsel if your situation needs it.

Preface

I have grown through writing this book.

As I wrote about the things Ive learned, I learned them more deeply.

In many ways, the pages written here are an aide memoir; things Ive learned about imagination and the creative life I never want to forget; lessons I want to pass on to my daughter so she has the chance to go further, and achieve more, than I ever manage during my lifetime.

I was surprised to discover how much the journey would demand that I take big gulps of the very medicine I was busy prescribing; and as a result, Im now a stronger and more whole man than the one who set out.

This outcome wasnt my aim, but it has served to settle my heart on the validity of sharing my thoughts and experiences here with you.

This is the best kind of journey.

My hope as you read these pages is that you, too, will emerge having been on an unanticipated adventure of the heart; one that brings you freedom, wholeness, and creative liberty in every worthy endeavour you turn your hand to.

Introduction

I ran into the garden and stood in anticipation, a plump seven-year-old yearning for a flicker of delight as I held up a drawing Id just finished, only for my open heart to be decimated.

Shut up, you fat bastard.

The adult whose care I was supposedly in stormed straight past without breaking stride. I ran upstairs, locked myself in the bathroom, and sobbed for an age. My artistic heart and self-worth were left gasping for air from the blow of that sentencethe inevitable right hook following years of tiresome jabs.

Those five words confirmed my suspicions: the disinterest and disdain toward me and my creativity were real, and the wraps were now completely off so I no longer needed to wonder.

This was the moment my relationship with creativity changed, the point it finally tipped.

I had no name for it back then, but this is my clearest early memory of what I now refer to as a Creative Wound. This is the infliction of damage to the core of who we are as creators. It is an attack on our artistic identity, resulting in us believing that whatever we make is somehow tainted or invalid, because shame has convinced us there is something intrinsically tainted or invalid about ourselves. This is the older brother of the imposter syndrome. Self-doubt on steroids. It is rooted deeper, and seems more true, than plain uncertainty.

Rather than permitting us the joy of plunging into the ocean of our untapped potential, a Creative Wound restricts us to a life splashing around in the shallows. Yes, it is safer, but it lacks any of the exhilaration we truly long for in our art.

A Creative Wound has the power to delay our pursuitssometimes for yearsand it can even derail our lives completely. This may sound melodramatic, but really its not. Anything that makes us feel ashamed of ourselves or our work can render us incapable of the self-expression we yearn for.

On that afternoon in March 1980, I had no idea a long career as a creative professional hung precariously in the balance, but, aged seven, I was already punch-drunk, emotionally spent, and felt as if giving up might be my best option. However, in that moment, my young self knew I had to push against the crushing; and so, as more assaults came, the more I pushed.

I pushed hard .

Today, I get to play, record and produce music; I shoot photos for album covers, magazine editorial features, and stylised imagery for interesting people and brands; I design album artwork and book covers; I consult on marketing and brand direction for small businesses, and I coach fellow creatives. Oh, and I write.

Had resignation got the better of me that day in 1980, and Id failed to approach my life and work with gritty imagination, Id never be doing all that I enjoy today. Some of it, maybe. But certainly not all of it.

I constantly meet gifted people who are unable to share the brilliance that lives inside them because they are fearful or in too much pain. Im thankful Ive avoided joining the many whove abandoned their art in exchange for apparent safety. Im not famous, nor do I aspire to be, but I do get to make things that make a difference. Im living the life of my own design, and so can you.

Whether success for you means forging a full-time career in the arts, or simply being able to enjoy exploring your imagination without the companionship of debilitating emotions, this book will instil creative courage in you. Through it, you will recover your creative confidence if youve lost it, or finally discover your creative heart if youre yet to determine where it lies.

CREATIVE DERAILMENT & RESTORATION

In what follows, I will define what Creative Wounds are, how they happen, and discover ways they have been derailing your artistic life. Then together we will investigate methods of solving the persistent problems they create and learn how to get free of their hindrance so you can spend your time making art instead of drifting along in frustration.

Some books promise a step-by-step formula to the secret of creative bliss. This isnt one of those. That whole painting-by-numbers approach to art has never resonated with me. Consequently, I dont have prescriptive methods to my work, and I refuse to cheat you by fabricating any here. Instead, I am offering you insight into a way a pointing of the compass and an exposition of the terrain. This will help you establish a posture of heart and clarity of mind with which to guide your creative life.

My aim is to put tools into your hands and ideas into your head so you can experience restored wholeness and confidence in relation to your creative world.

I write from first-hand experience gained from a long career as a professional multi-disciplined creative. During my time with a series of UK design and branding agencies, I would repeatedly find myself being the unofficial studio counsellor/coach. This was when I discovered I had a knack for pinpointing how an individual had become creatively stuck. I would then help them work through the necessary process so that they could return to an enjoyable and productive creative flow.