The Sketch I’ll Never Send: How I Stopped Performing for the Art World

A fellow artist friend messaged me this week, mildly irked by yet another opportunity that required “sketches” to apply.

He’s an intuitive abstract painter. There is no sketch. His work is born through process, movement, layers, and surrender. And once again, the application disqualified him before he even had a chance to be seen.

When I read his message, I felt the familiar pang.

I knew that feeling well. I used to contort myself for those kinds of “opportunities” too. To prove my worth, to prove my professionalism, to prove certainty before the work even began.

The Trap of Proving Yourself

On the surface, asking for sketches doesn’t sound unreasonable. Many industries are built on outlines and proposals, drafts and mockups.

But art, at least my art, is not built that way.

I paint with a palette knife. My process is physical, textured, embodied. It is not linear or predictable. When I used to force myself to provide sketches, they looked nothing like the finished piece. Instead of helping, they created confusion, or worse, disappointment, when the real work emerged in its own language.

The deeper issue wasn’t the sketch itself. It was what the sketch represented: a demand for performance. A pretense of certainty. A submission to an industry model that rewards compliance over authenticity.

I realized every time I bent to those rules, I was shrinking the very thing my work was here to expand.

So I stopped.

Drawing My Line in the Sand

Years ago, I made the decision: No more sketches.

I wrote it into my commission packet, clearly and unapologetically.

If you want to work with me, you’re not buying a plan. You’re not buying a draft. You’re investing in the unknown, a portal, a coherence, a trust that the work will emerge as it is meant to.

And something surprising happened.

My collectors weren’t upset. They were relieved.

They didn’t want to micromanage the creative process. They wanted to enter into it with me. They weren’t investing in certainty; they were investing in resonance.

That shift taught me something profound: the boundaries we draw in our creative lives aren’t just about protecting ourselves. They invite others into a deeper form of trust.

Beyond Art: Where Else Are We Performing?

This isn’t just about commissions or sketches. It’s about a larger pattern that many creators, and really, many humans, are caught in.

• Where are we still shape-shifting to be palatable?

• Who are we performing for?

• What systems do we participate in that prey on our fear of not being picked?

For artists, this shows up in all kinds of ways.

I don’t apply to juried shows anymore. I don’t pay to be seen. That model, where thousands of artists pay $30 or $50 just to have their work “considered”, is a racket. It’s an economy of scarcity, where the real winners are not the artists but the organizers.

And this is not unique to the art world. Writers, entrepreneurs, consultants, even healers, all face some version of this same pressure: to prove themselves in ways that betray their real process. To hand over sketches of a life, instead of living it fully.

There’s a difference between positioning and performing.

Between professionalism and pleasing.

Between devotion and contortion.

The moment we stop performing for an outside gaze, we reclaim energy that can go back into the work itself.

The Freedom of Coherence

The clearer I get in my process, the more the right doors open without me bending.

That’s not just poetic language, it’s practical. Collectors can feel coherence. They may not use that word, but they sense when an artist is steady in their process and boundaries. They sense when the work is authentic, not diluted.

And in a world where much of the “art market” is clouded by opacity, speculation, and performance, coherence itself becomes magnetic.

It’s not about rejecting every opportunity. It’s about discerning: is this an invitation that aligns with my integrity, or is it asking me to perform at the cost of it?

What Line in the Sand Are You Ready to Draw?

For me, the line was sketches. For you, it might be something else entirely.

Maybe it’s refusing to underprice yourself.

Maybe it’s no longer chasing algorithms that demand daily output.

Maybe it’s saying no to clients who drain your energy.

Maybe it’s choosing not to measure your worth by how quickly someone else “approves” your work.

Whatever it is, the act of drawing that line is not just a refusal. It’s an affirmation.

It says: I trust my process. I trust my resonance. I trust that the right people will meet me here.

And when you stand in that kind of clarity, the invitations that arrive begin to look different. They don’t ask you to contort. They ask you to show up as you are.

A Closing Reflection

I never sent the sketch. And I never will again.

That decision wasn’t just about my process as a painter, it was about how I want to live my life.

Less performance. More coherence.

Less proving. More belonging.

Less fear. More resonance.

So I’ll leave you with the question that lives at the heart of this:

What line in the sand are you ready to draw?

✦ If you’d like to see my latest originals, textured palette knife landscapes inspired by California’s coastlines, forests, and wild blooms, browse my available paintings here.

✦ For more reflections like this, listen to my podcast, The Coherence Channel, available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your pods: https://pod.link/1833682316?view=apps&sort=popularity

Lisa