Creative Identity: Establishing Balance as a Working Artist (transcript)

Leigh Williamson: I have a vivid memory of going to my mother and I had this picture that I had drawn and my mother was like, "Wow, that's a really good drawing." Suddenly I was like, "Le has the ability to draw and someone appreciates that." And unfortunately that can't always be the best mantra for the rest of your life because we then go searching for affirmation. When we monetize that, we suddenly create art that's subjective to other people's tastes, to other people's price tags, and to all other things that go along the line.

Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I'm Wesley Slover. As creative professionals, I'm sure we can all relate to receiving some tough feedback, spending hours on carefully considered creative work only to have it picked apart in a list of comments. I've spent 13 years in the industry building up thicker skin and learning to not take feedback personally. But even still, it can really sting. Maybe it's from disappointment or from not feeling confident in our abilities. Or maybe it's just a tough day. Making things for people is vulnerable and exposes us to some difficult feelings.

Host (Wesley Slover): Leigh Williamson, an art director, animator, and illustrator who has spent 20 years in the advertising industry, recently had a pretty profound encounter with this. Leigh, tell us about that project.

Leigh Williamson: The project was supposed to be quite a fast turnaround and the CEO that was available to me hardly ever answered. I really had to send out a ridiculous amount of emails just to say, "Please answer me. I want to meet your deadline. Please get to me." I got no correspondence, and that left me less time to meet their deadline, which meant I had to spend time over the weekend to complete that job.

Leigh Williamson: I informed the CEO that since he had to work over the weekend, he would need to charge time and a half. The CEO wasn't happy about the extra expense, but he agreed and I completed the work. The two other CEOs were really happy with the job, but the CEO wrote me an email after that he wasn't happy with what he got regardless of the fact that the other two CEOs were happy and that the presentation went incredibly well.

Leigh Williamson: Now I understand that in certain cases you sometimes just get abrasive clients and we need to make sure that we protect ourselves for those moments, but for that day I just wasn't quite ready for that comment and that kind of went into my armor and I took it so to heart. I took it that the job wasn't done well enough or the client wasn't happy enough and I fell into depression for 7 months. I couldn't accept any client work. I actually lost my ability to create. It just wouldn't come out, and it took me a long time to recover over that.

Host (Wesley Slover): This was the first time Leigh had experienced something like this. Negative feedback wasn't a new thing for him, but he'd gone into that job feeling kind of worn down.

Leigh Williamson: Multiple things that had been happening had kind of eaten away at a lot of us. So, you're already entering a job feeling quite low. And if you don't protect yourself, it just takes one more strike to actually take you down and bring you to your knees. And I think that was one of those defining moments. I took one more hit and I wasn't ready for that hit.

Leigh Williamson: Next thing you know, I was broken and I didn't actually know what was going on with me. I was crying every day. I couldn't even interact properly with my own children, and I didn't even know what it was at the time. It was only later that I found out that it wasn't quite depression, but closer to burnout. I think I was just trying so hard for so long and getting knocked so often that it just hit me and then I had to figure out how to fix that.

Leigh Williamson: Every time I tried to do something, it's like I just couldn't figure out things and I didn't have the patience to push. It was so hard. I had forgotten how to do what feels so natural to do, and I lost confidence in my own abilities. I feel creatives seem to make their creativity to their job more their core identity than any other profession. We connect our identity to the job that we do so that when the job is attacked or what we have done or the costing or the creativity isn't acceptable, that kind of attacks the person because we label ourselves as creatives, as artists.

Host (Wesley Slover): During this time, as Leigh was experiencing burnout, he received a lot of love and support from his parents, his wife, and his church.

Leigh Williamson: My church was very helpful at that time because our finances were quite tough that they actually paid for a counselor to help me process the information that I had. I also had a really close friend at church who had been through depression before, and he helped me with a step program that he helped himself get out of the hole with. It helped me build a pathway to actually thinking differently.

Leigh Williamson: I had to find a way of finding what my identity was if I didn't do design. So I had to remind myself that I'm a father, that I'm a husband, that I'm a gardener, a baker—all different things. I had to find other hobbies, things that kind of made me happy so that when that part of me was attacked, I could kind of spread myself over other aspects of me.

Host (Wesley Slover): Leigh started making art again. He didn't have the confidence to do work for clients, but he was able to get back into working by learning a new technique that interested him.

Leigh Williamson: I was studying something called UV mapping, which is the way to unwrap an object in 3D so that you can paint on it. I decided not to ever post about it on social media until I really absolutely loved it so that it could be my thing, and that I could grow a love for. It was just this little hobby that I created for myself that actually bloomed and I got a whole new art style from it. After that, I was able to take on anything else. Suddenly, it just all came back to life again. It was special because I did it for myself and that seemed to kind of wake something up again.

Host (Wesley Slover): Something that stands out to Leigh is just how important affirmation is to the creative process. Whether that's a client giving feedback or us giving feedback among our own creative collaborators. We should remember that our ability to affirm someone's creativity is a powerful thing.

Leigh Williamson: When you affirm the person that is doing their job, you actually get more out of them. I love coffee, and when I used to contract in London, I loved going to a new job to find a new coffee house to get my coffee from. I would often stand in front of the barista and get so excited and say, "Wow, I'm so excited for your coffee. It's amazing. You always make such a great cup. It's fantastic and I really appreciate it."

Leigh Williamson: I think it's happened two or three times where the barista was so taken by the compliment that they gave me a free cup of coffee. It's a good learning lesson to a client that when you affirm the person who's doing the job for you, you'd be quite surprised how they will bend over backwards and actually do more than they originally anticipated to do for you for a job.

Leigh Williamson: The same goes for if you undermine them and don't affirm them. For example, you might write an email that says, "You've made multiple spelling mistakes. Why didn't you catch them? You need to fix that ASAP." As opposed to a good example: "That job's coming along nicely. I spotted some minor errors. Could you fix that? We are running tight on time. Would it be possible if you could do it within the next hour? Let me know if that works for you."

Host (Wesley Slover): Leigh recognizes that even on this project that was the final straw for him, he did receive positive affirmation from the other two CEOs who were happy with the project.

Leigh Williamson: The irony is I have reached out to that client again on my availability. So I know that I've grown from that because otherwise I wouldn't have a skin thick enough to actually return back to that client. I don't take it personally anymore, which is a very positive sign.

Leigh Williamson: I just asked myself a couple of questions: was the client unhealthy or was my approach unhealthy? And I think in this situation it was my approach to information which was unhealthy. Sometimes you might just get the end stick of someone else who's just trying to rinse the last feelings of it because they got flack from high above. I took that information and interpolated it differently and decided it's okay to approach. It just takes time and maturity to understand which ones are healthy ones to return to and which ones are ones you will write off.

Host (Wesley Slover): This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our artwork and branding was created by Audrey Havey. She's a phenomenal collaborator, and I cannot recommend her highly enough. If you have any thoughts on collaboration, we would love to hear from you at the collab collections.audio. The Collab Collection is a project of Sanctus Audio, a sound and music design studio. Hear our work at sanctis.audio. And if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up.