Over the past few months, I’ve been sharing my art with a community of origamists called Origami-Dan. Origami-Dan is a server with over 4,000 members, and a few hundred are pretty active. Some of the best origamists in the world come here to talk about art and share their passion for paper-folding. Since I was getting into design work, I thought I’d start sharing what I make here. People could let me know what they liked, what they didn’t, potential improvements, etc. It seemed like a pretty innocuous idea.
Before I became active in the community, I decided to take a quick skim through some recent works made by server members. In just a few minutes of scrolling, I saw more incredible origami than I had seen in the past year surfing the internet. These artists were absolutely phenomenal, doing things with paper I had never dreamed were possible. Seeing such incredible art made me want to improve my own, so I worked and I worked and I quickly got better.
Eventually, it was time for my first post in the server. The server hosts monthly design competitions, so I decided to design a piece that fit the theme and submit it. The theme was “Lord of the Swamp,” a strange combination of Lord of the Ring and Swamp, which was really forcing artists to be creative with their work. I didn’t know how to design anything complicated, so I made a swamp ring. It was just a ring with a sprout and two leaves coming out the top. Nothing complicated, just a cute, little design. No one really paid much attention, but I did get one reply saying I hit the theme well.
Fast-forward to July, when the contest theme was “Emotions.” I had this really silly idea of doing a literal interpretation of “hanging by a thread.” Rather than going for desperation, I aimed for a design that looked more defeated. The result was this person dangling from a balloon tied behind them. I put a lot of effort into it, and for a moment, I thought I made good art. That moment was rather brief. All that pride turned into self-criticism as I began seeing nothing but the flaws and imperfections in my design.
Oh well, I thought, might as well submit it anyways. I clicked the little send button, and it was off. By that time, I had made a few friends in the server, and they were kind enough to compliment my work. I even got a compliment from a super talented folder that I didn’t know personally, which was beyond encouraging. A few weeks later, I ended up winning that design contest, which should have cleared any doubts I had.
It didn’t. I still felt like a fraud.
As a brief aside, accepting compliments is a rather rare phenomenon for many people, at least in American English. According to a report by the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, in American English, we only accept compliments about a third of the time. The other two-thirds of the time, we might scale down the compliment, shift the credit, or just flat-out reject the praise altogether. I’ve seen this in other languages, but it’s particularly common in American English. I’ve tried learning to accept compliments, and saying “thank you” is easy, but truly believing a compliment is genuine remains rather difficult.
All of that culminated to today, when I posted my piece titled Stargazing. At first, the response was pretty minimal. One guy really liked it, but there wasn’t much traction. I didn’t mind, since I wasn’t posting for attention, but a few hours later, my phone started dinging. Apparently, I had just entirely missed the time of day when origamists were active online. People loved my design. I was getting compliments from artists I had been admiring for months. It was honestly a bit overwhelming, but I was so happy, taking the time to thank people who said encouraging things.
As I was responding to all of this, I got one comment that complimented me on my distinct style from an artist I really admired. I never thought I would develop a style as an artist, but seeing that comment really made me feel like I had actually become an artist. In my excitement, I decided to scroll up to my original post again, and suddenly all the cheering in my head quieted down. This is what people are getting excited about? It’s so simple and messy. Obviously they think that too, right? Why would they say such nice things? Do they really mean all these compliments?
For a few minutes, I just sat there, the thought of praise making me feel bummed out. I don’t deserve this kind of response. Other artists post way cooler stuff than I do, and people don’t get nearly as excited. It’s because I’m new, right? When the novelty wears off, it’ll quiet back down. I don’t know when the novelty will wear off, since I’m still new, but I am convinced that’s part of it. I felt like such an imposter, such a fake, not a real artist.
As I was settling into my despair, I saw a little circle appear on my Friends tab. It was a friend request from a really popular artist on the server, the same one that liked my style. Eventually, I had to come to the realization that they were being genuine when they complimented my work. Everyone was, probably. It was just so hard to fathom, and I don’t say this to sound self-centered. I genuinely could not imagine people liking my art. Instead, all I felt was perceived. Having never had such an enthusiastic audience, so I didn’t realize how intensely I felt perceived even when it was positive. I thought the mortifying ordeal of being perceived was the cost of an audience that maybe didn’t like you yet, but—in full naivete—I thought the feeling would subside once people liked me. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Sharing my art is a luxury, and having found such a receptive audience is a gift, but that hasn’t made it any easier. I will always openly welcome compliments and criticism, but actually taking either is no easy task. There are plenty of times when I post art, and it’s mostly ignored, and that’s how it usually will be. If I’m ever lucky enough to have people respond, I will probably panic as is my nature, but if imposter syndrome and being perceived and judgement is the price I have to pay, I’m more than willing. Any strong reaction is someone engaging with my art, and as an artist, that’s all I can really ask for.