THE MESSY MIDDLE: WHAT IS IT AND HOW TO NAVIGATE IT?

I’m working on a big, commissioned piece at the moment. It’s a painting that I had in a sketchbook- one of my favourites- and I was absolutely stoked at having gotten the request to create it on a larger scale. However, I’m currently deep in the trenches of this highly unpleasant thing called the ‘messy middle’.

The messy middle is a very familiar, very dependable, and rather unsavoury friend. It’s the ugly and dreaded, mid phase of my process across anything creative- whether I’m writing a short story, making a 20 slide deck, or creating a painting. It is basically that phase that comes in AFTER the high of the beginning, and just before the climax/ the beauty of the end. In a five act movie, it’s act two and act three, maybe even act 4.

In the context of a painting, it creeps in after the romance of starting a new piece. JUST after I’m convinced that oh my god, this is going so well, it’s going to be a masterpiece. And just as I sink into that comfortable feeling of accomplishment, I transition into an icky phase, where I don’t like where I’m at and I don’t know how to move forward. It takes all the patience I have to remind myself to have faith and keep going. 

Have you ever been in the messy middle? It recently occurred to me that the messy middle is not just a creative phenomenon, but a life thing. For example, in a relationship it’s that phase of frustration that creeps in right after you’ve spent time in the honeymoon phase. On a larger scale, in the journey that is life, it’s the (dark) middle ages- the mid life crisis where people end up having existential crises. 

Either way, whether it’s the messy middle of life, or the messy middle of a painting, the messy middle is inevitable. I think the only solution is to not fight its arrival, and let it pass through. Like that ancient adage says (on far too many totes imho)- 

Keep Calm and Carry On.