Meet Luke Smith

We recently connected with Luke Smith and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Luke, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.
When I started putting my art out there more, I compared myself to what others were doing, and I think that’s about the worst thing you can do for imposter syndrome. You look at someone else’s art and think “Look at that incredible piece. That’s so much better than anything I can make.” And this is absolutely the worst thing you can do. It makes you feel inept and can make you feel hopeless enough to stop creating. But then I encountered this quote from Dante Stewart, “Remember, your gift is your gift. Grow it, expand it, and celebrate it. Don’t compare though. Comparison is a thief of creativity.” These ideas were hard to internalize at first, but I started practicing catching myself anytime I started comparing my own work or success to others. I tried to focus more on just creating. Create. Create. Create. Every piece you make, you learn something more about your craft, and you gain new skills. Using your creativity breeds more creativity. So then I just focused on making more and more art of whatever I wanted and also challenging myself to paint subjects or pieces that I wouldn’t normally have pursued because I didn’t think I had the skills yet. Challenging yourself to new levels though is the only way that you can improve your skill. And then eventually, I found that I had gained enough where I could have conversations with other artists about craft and in mid-conversation I would realize that I was holding my own and didn’t feel like an imposter at all. It was surprising to discover that I was finally confident in myself.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m an artist and a writer. My biggest piece of work is called American Howl. It’s an epic poem about pizza delivery drivers during the Super Bowl all told in rhyme. It’s set in a modern yet polytheistic America with somewhat pathetic gods influencing the events affecting the food service workers. It’s available on Amazon, and soon I will have an audiobook version too.

In addition to writing, I’m also a painter, working in watercolor and oil. I’ve been just growing my process and skills for a while, but I’m finally in a place where I can accept commissions, and this year I’m trying to set up on demand printing of my work.

I’m also a musician sort of. This is one of those areas where I still feel a lot of imposter syndrome, but I do it because I love it and it’s fun to perform. My goal musically this year is to write more songs and perform in more venues.

I’ve probably got too many different projects going on between visual arts and writing and music. I have this problem of thinking about a new project and immediately gatekeeping myself by thinking “Oh, I wouldn’t be able to do that because I don’t have such-and-such skill.” But then I have this immediate response in my head of “Screw that! I can do/make that if I want, and I’m not gonna let my own self be the one that keeps me from pursuing this.” And that’s why my goals for this year include publishing an audiobook, finishing two novel length works, and writing a screenplay, while also oil painting every week, and pursuing a masters degree while also working a full time job. Will I accomplish all of these? No. But I will finish some of them and on others I will just make progress. It’s important to me to always use my time effectively. And even If I don’t finish it all, I would rather fail at high set goals than succeed at something easy that didn’t really challenge me.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I think consistency, adaptability, and goal setting have been the most impactful attributes for me.

With any craft, ultimately, you’ve just got to put in the work. There’s a Phillip Glass quote where he says “You practice and you get better. It’s very simple.” And I have found this to be true in everything. It seems silly actually to be surprised when your skills improve because you’re consistently practicing, but I think this is a truism that’s worth reflecting on. Regularly, I’ll look back at my older work and see how much I’ve improved, and I’m shocked to see the growth. But that’s really just how it works. It’s important to recognize that some people may seem to have an innate talent, but no one gets to be truly skilled with anything without practicing and challenging themselves.

You also need to show up consistently. Having a schedule for writing and for painting is what works for me. If you know at what time of day you are going to get to work, then your brain begins to schedule its own creativity for those moments. I think it’s also vital to know what you are working towards. You have to have a conversation with yourself about the bigger picture, about what you want to achieve. Decide what your dream is, and then say to yourself “Okay, where am I now and what steps do I need to take to get to my dream?” You sort of chart your current position and what you want your destination to be. Then you can look at the big picture and see what the next step is. Once you see the next step, you schedule work toward that step into your daily or weekly schedule.

I used to have vague goals of publishing and creating different series of works. But they were always just floating around in my mind, like “one day I’ll do that.” Finally I realized that nothing would happen if I myself didn’t take the first step. So I looked at what I had and where I wanted to go. I keep a physical set of goal worksheets in my journal and refer back to them whenever I need to. The page lists the goals, the current statuses, and the next steps to take. With this format, I can work on a goal until I get it to a status where it’s waiting on someone else’s processing, and while that project is pending, I can move to another goal on the list to work on while I wait. In this way, I can edit multiple manuscripts, write new stories, and create new art series all within a schedule that includes time for creativity, but can pivot from project to project.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
I think that it is vital as a human to always work on improving areas where you aren’t as strong. For one thing, challenging your brain with new skills or areas to improve is what keeps your mind sharp and flexible. For me, working with new media that I’m unfamiliar with often increases my skills or awareness within areas that I am already strong in. For example, I started learning to play accordion just for fun, but in doing so, in order to learn how to play it, I accidentally taught myself to play by ear, something that I’d never done before. So then, when I went back to playing guitar, I now had the ability to figure songs out by ear and to compose melodies just by humming something and then figuring out how to play it on the guitar.

Also, you never really know when a skill is going to come in super handy or take you down a path you hadn’t planned on. I wrote my epic poem, American Howl, entirely in rhyme which was time consuming at first and a little bizarre but eventually I was able to compose swiftly in rhyme. Later, I became a first grade teacher and within that career, I started writing educational songs, channeling my rhyming ability. All of that is to say, yes, it’s vital to challenge yourself to improve in all areas.

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