Participant 1 = A sense of being present, getting a sense of something heavy to make you feel you own lightness, Feeling irritable, having an itch you can’t scratch, safe, boring, frustrated, anxious, procrastination
Participant 2 = A bubble, being in suspension (being in in a diving pool, half way down), being bored, nothing happens here, treading over old soil, feeling stable, When I’m in my comfort zone I can move more – move around the world. I would only do self-portraits here, all autobigraphical
Participant 3 = A neutral place, stationary with comfort zone potentially growing around you
Participant 4 = A place of thinking and not enough doing, things don’t flow, Happy to stay here because it’s known and safe, sitting down and taking it easy.
Participant 5 = Knows when she’s in it and on the edge of it, feels comfort, boring and known, knows what she’s’ doing, on automatic, playing it safe with an old technique, knowing it will succeed but finding that dull and not challenging, putting on old comfy slippers, coming home, knowing how your hands and the equipment works, familiar, settled in
Participant 6 = Too far outside of CZ doesn’t feel like me, difficult stuff comes into my comfort zone without my control, feels boring, a touch-stone
Participant 7 = Safe, predictable, repetitive, known, balanced
Participant 8 = Low-light, quiet, dull, unpacked potential, silent
Participant 9 = Dark, quiet, still peaceful, solitary, safe, boring, what I know
Participant 10 = Being ‘inside’, frozen, reassuring, stability, do you let stuff in or go out?
Participant 11 = Being at college and getting the support, artwork not so successful if safe, CZ feels stagnant, safe, boring, limiting, ancestral! Not going very far
Participant 12 = Avoiding things, feels private, full of the things I like, a balancing act
Participant 13 = Low-tech processes, self-sufficient, limiting, non-creative, known materials and processes.
Small bubble that is me-shaped but a bit bigger – the value of comfort in an expanse. You’re on top of the mountain = everything is great, then you start to experiment, realise that you don’t know anything and that you are terrible at it, dive head-first into a pit of despair, push your way through it, crawl sometime and then you are on the top of the mountain again, only you realise that it’s a different mountain, you do this again and again.
A high that emphasises how low the lows can be, a balance, on the line
What gets you into your comfort zone?
General summary of themes across all 14 participants:
Environment extremely important, being in nature feels grounding – I’m part of a bigger picture,
Being mindful in a non-judgemental environment,
feeling safe and
taking breaks
going out into nature,
asking questions and getting answers,
tough love – loving critical advice
Being in nature
Forward planning
Feeling safe in a workshop
Wanting to impress and compete
Making food and being creative with it
Searching for something that will pull you in either direction
Working at home
Benefits of leaving comfort zone
Exciting
Walking away with a feeling of accomplishment
Making something you never thought you’d make
Making it happen again, despite the discomfort
Jump-starting yourself
Feeling the thrill
Feeling the buzz
Work more vibrant
Different perspective
Building something real
Exciting trying to get somewhere, excitement of trying to make it.
Making your vision
Creating your own agenda
Realising that something going bad has learning in it.
Finding new things
An element of danger
Interesting things happen
Learning to handle it
Getting more of a sense of where I sit in the world
Seeing things with fresh eyes
Seeing your work through someone else’s eyes.
Are you aware of how you use your comfort zone?
Learning to practice the difficult steps
Learning to fall, it’s a learning experience
Going out of it to learn something new, take a risk, then get comfortable again in order to absorb it, crossing in and out
Inhabiting my inner hard-core tutor
Getting inspired by peers
Feeling intimidated but asking questions and knowing this helps, having to push myself to do that.
Making myself talk to people, I know that I learn so much that way and that people are just people and also insecure
Talking to myself and motivating myself to move
If I don’t like what I’ve heard, I concentrate on forgetting it
I ignore my discomfort and make myself do something
I learn best when I’m on the edge of the comfort zone
I make myself open the window – can be really scary
Accepting that it might ‘look crap’
Crawling in the dark at times, but keeping going
Has learned to tap into people’s expertise, he can use this to move forward
Taking the thing I feel comfortable with and pushing it
I’ve learnt to handle it and push myself
Taking my comfort with me and pushing that
Doing something I like but then pushing it to an extreme (scale or level of detail)
Going to and fro across the comfort zone in order to feel safe but with a level of unpredictability
Learning to get up and keep going, have another go,
Learning resilience and to bounce back because that keeps you going forward
Bringing experience to bare
What do you fear?
Looking stupid
Looking weak
Not living up to the quality of a material (using expensive things like porcelain and gold/silver)
Not wanting to keep going
Horrible teachers
Not achieving enough
Being shut-down, someone saying a blanket ‘no’ without discussion
Working around virtuosic people
Sculpture has to exist off the page, to leap out of your head
Putting something into 3D – you know its going to look crap
It’s a risk to make something rather than draw or plan it
Seeing your art through someone else’s eyes – having to leave it in the real world
Watching people look at your art
Working in a space that I can’t control
Tools,
Meeting your own criteria – its about being self-sufficient and taking your ‘fodder’ with you.
Having and manifesting a vision
Asking questions, making yourself heard
Pushing to get what I need
Planning
Structure
Discipline
Breaking challenges down into manageable tasks
Taking your comfort with you – learning what makes you comfortable and learning to access these touch-stones.
Recognising how you learn, looking for this in a task
Faking it until you make it – pretending but with intent and vigour
Making your claim in a space, knowing this helps to feel comfortable
Problem solving – a method to get out of the comfort zone, a structure on which to climb
Trial and error – knowing that this works eventually
Developing my comfort zone-leaving muscle
Learning through trial and error – knowing this is hard but effective
Channelling my reckless side
Tackling challenges in a way that is comfortable to you.
What is helpful when leaving your comfort zone or learning a new skill?
Being in college and getting support
Making a volume of work so that you have less eggs in one basket
Being asked lots of questions,
Someone asking you about your work and listening
Having a confident person demonstrating
Someone having confidence in you
Being allowed to progress at your own speed
Making a plan, breaking challenges down into manageable tasks
Sharing with others
Having a clear path – being shown with clear instruction
Making it playful –
Having a vision in your mind
Someone telling you its ok to fail
Talking it through
Being shown
Seeing work by others illustrating success with a skill/technique
Being inspired by others using the skill in different contexts
Someone showing you something then facilitating you doing it yourself
Practical advice
Encouragement
Thinking about the fees
Having guidance and pointers
Good to see a breadth of stuff
Being encouraged to think broadly around a concept.
Group crits in a supportive atmosphere
Being trusted to have learned something
Being shown the dangers but then having it demonstrated effectively
What’s not helpful
Too much advice
School experiences – being told that if you can’t draw you’re not an artist
Being shown work that is like what you’re doing
Being treated differently because I’m older
Being told something is ‘shit’
Getting pushed into the panic zone where you freeze
Feeling intimidated by the expectations of the ‘expert’ showing you
Making a plan, making a structure, analysing what worked on past projects.
Having a set of your own rules.
Being in a safe, comfortable space
Being shown clear steps, breaking challenges down into bite-sized pieces
Showing the different parts of the process and explaining thoroughly what is going on.
Once you have tried something it becomes more comfortable
A confident person demonstrating allows you to access the process feeling safe. It can remove the mystery and the terror.
Having a personal theme to the work can make you feel very vulnerable
Take your skills and push them as far as you can go with the thing that you’re comfortable with.
A sense of being present
Space hugely important – buildings, desks, personal space to work in, environment – mentioned by Participant
Lots of geographical metaphors, mountains, chasms, rough roads, ‘wobbly bits in the road’
Being led by a material – wanting to honour the material
Being led by problem solving, you apply yourself to that rather than on the fear
A need to have someone there to support, walk alongside, have your back. Bounce ideas off, to ask you questions, to suggest other artists and where you might sit. To get you to think more broadly
Being told you’re not an artist if you can’t draw – at an early age. School having a massive impact on people’s perceptions of themselves
Being led by the material, the material helping you go outside your comfort zone. Pushing that to see where it will take you. Violet and Lucinda, Lewis all said this about honouring the material, especially if using something that you love.
Time being a factor – learning when you are tired, Bernadette and Violet, Lucinda. Taking time out being necessary as a part of coping.
Taking breaks, a complete break, really helps clear thinking.
One person’s risk may not look that risky to others, its all totally subjective