On changing your mind

An ex-boyfriend of mine used to hate when I would speak in absolutes. "I will always do X" or "I will never want Y" are examples of how it usually came out. I admit, I did this a lot, but no, the majority of the time it was not a conscious decision. In retrospect, I'm thankful for him calling it out every time I would do it. I'm not sure I would have ever known how often I spoke this way or felt curious enough to figure out why.

At the time, I didn't really have an answer for why I loved closing more doors than I did opening them. Now the answer is more clear. I'd speak this way about very silly things to shut down conversations about doing anything that scared me. I saw my ex challenging me to dismantle what I thought I knew about myself as an attack. ~Shocker~.

I was afraid of discomfort. I didn't want to grow in ways that challenged my assumptions about who I thought I was.

This is what I believe is the interesting part. It was not that I was speaking like this purely as a dramatic way of saying no, it was also about desperately trying to explain who I thought I was. I'd rather keep trying to convince everyone that I was indeed the person I curated myself to be, and that the decision was final.

What my ex so wisely pointed out was that living this way left no room for growth or self-discovery. I incorrectly assumed I could keep making finite decisions about who I was in a predictable and linear way, continuing to build on a stable, comfortable, concrete foundation. I hoped that this meant I would never make mistakes, or get rejected, or have to take steps back in the pursuit of knowing myself and communicating that to others.

In Daybook: The Journal of an Artist (1982), Anne Truitt writes, "The hallmark of a decision in line with one's inner development is a feeling of having laid down a burden and picked up a more natural responsibility." I keep coming back to how physical that sentence is. A real change of mind is supposed to feel lighter. The absolutes I projected never did. In the same book, Truitt writes about how we doom each other by holding onto preconceived notions of one another, and how she has to pay careful attention to listen to others with an openness that allows them to be "as they are, or as they think themselves to be." That openness reads like permission to me. Permission to change, and permission to let the people around you change too.

Another artist who comes to mind when I think about change is Ashley Brown Durand. For example, she created an artwork that literally reads "You can change your mind" (shown above). If I remember correctly, this phrase has shown up in a few of her works over the years. I admire this one for its simplicity, and for the innate wonkiness that comes from cutting out words by hand. I imagine some level of planning went into the size and placement of the letters on the paper, but that she allowed a certain amount of freedom in how each letter was rendered, creating natural, beautiful inconsistencies.

I've noticed this quality in Ashley's work over the years, from quilts, to collages, to wall hangings, but also in how she shows up as an artist. Projects come and go. From Secret Holiday Co. (the OG affirmation banner), to Grapefruit (the storefront in Northampton, MA), and now a mail club (physical art delivered to your door every month). Recently I saw her post about how the quilt-making part of her practice may be pausing, or slowing down to make room for other projects, which I love. I love artists who thoughtfully pursue something but are also able to move on or allow it to evolve when they need or want to. In this case, she underscores an important reminder that saying no to one thing means you can say yes to something else.

The sharing part of changing your mind that I admire in Ashley is the part I feel I'm still learning. Sharing what I'm working on has always felt like signing some kind of contract. Announce a project, post the first thing, get support or talk about it with others, and then somewhere along the line, the idea goes from "I'm doing this now" to "I will do this always". It's the same defensive absolute, performed for an audience, adding pressure to continue. When a project ends, or shifts, or stops being true, the guilt arrives like I've dropped the ball. Though, I think Truitt would call it "laying down a burden."

I don't speak in absolutes as much anymore, or at least I try to catch myself faster when I do. What changed me was watching other people go first. An ex who called it out every time (thank you Devynn), a sculptor writing in her journal about artistic alignment, an artist cutting letters by hand. I'm thankful for my teachers, some mentioned here and some not, who give me the confidence required to share my own creative path, and to change my mind.