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Fear in Art

2016-12-16 · letter vlog · Tessa Violet · 3:26 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Pop culture · mode: Personal essay · tags: guest or collab

Guest host Tessa Violet, filling in on the last day of Hank's paternity leave, says releasing art means grieving its loss and creating means facing your own inadequacy, and that neither fear is a good reason not to try.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Tessa cries in the hour before her first EP in three years comes out; her friends felt the same

  • ★★ Tessa Violet: Tessa says that in October she had her first music release since her record three years earlier, and spent the hour before the EP came out crying while on tour. — 00:00:03
  • ★ Tessa Violet: Tessa says many of her friends with releases in the following months told her they had a similar experience in the hours before their EPs came out. — 00:00:16

00:00:30 — Releasing art is like sending a kid to college; creating means facing your inadequacy (Ira Glass on the gap); neither fear is a reason not to try

  • ★★ Tessa Violet: Tessa says releasing something is less like giving birth, as friends told her, than like sending your kid off to college: art that was yours for a year leaves and no longer belongs to you. (hedged) — 00:00:30
  • ★★ Tessa Violet: Tessa says letting go is especially hard for artists who put their identity in their art, who fear people won't like it, will find it not good enough, or will hate them. — 00:00:56
  • ★★ Tessa Violet: Tessa says it is hard to create anything and perhaps even harder to put it out, both hard for similar reasons. (hedged) — 00:01:05
  • ★★★ Tessa Violet: Tessa says a work is perfect while it exists only in your head, but creating it forces you to face your inadequacy, whether lacking hardware you can't afford or not yet knowing how to do it well. — 00:01:14
  • ★★ Ira Glass (quoted): Ira Glass, quoted by Tessa: creative people start with good taste, but for the first couple of years their work is not that good, and their killer taste is why their work disappoints them. — 00:01:42
  • ★★★ Tessa Violet: Tessa says the fear of inadequacy, and of rejection on release, is the reason many people never create at all. (hedged) — 00:02:09
  • ★★ Tessa Violet: Tessa says it is very vulnerable to say you made something and like it, maybe more so to say you wanted to like it but don't, but that is part of learning and being a beginner. (hedged) — 00:02:20
  • ★★★ Tessa Violet: Tessa concludes it is natural to grieve the loss of ownership and safety when releasing something, and to fear your inadequacy when creating, but neither is a good reason not to try. (hedged) — 00:02:34

00:02:50 — Flubbed sign-off (Friday, Tuesday), self-introduction and outtakes

  • ★ Tessa Violet: Tessa introduces herself at the end: she makes video blogs and original music. — 00:02:54

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says Tessa Violet fills in for Hank on the last day of his vlogbrothers paternity leave to talk about fear in art. — video description · Hank Green

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Mentioned

Central: fear of failure · Tessa Violet

Also: Ira Glass

Also centred on Tessa Violet: Frightened Leech Science with Tessa Violet

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