Unpopular opinion: we're overusing "intuitive artist"

It's in every bio, every caption, every artist statement right now. Mine included, so I'm not throwing stones from anywhere clean.

But I think we've worn it out. It's become the phrase you reach for when you want to sound like you have a process, and somewhere in all that reaching it stopped meaning anything. When I say it about my own work now it feels to me like background noise.

Which bugs me, because the thing it's describing in my work is not a soft, pretty, feel-good thing at all.

So here's what's actually going on when I use that word.

What intuition actually feels like

I'm a collage artist. When I'm working, there are images that grab me. Not "oh that's pretty." More like a pull. A feeling in the pit of my stomach that says this one. This image, with these colors, and now these other pieces want to come in too.

It's an itch. It's a nagging. And I cannot settle until I use what my gut is telling me to use.

I've learned this the hard way. When I override it, when I talk myself out of the image because it doesn't make sense or doesn't fit the palette I planned, the piece fails. Every time. I end up redoing the whole thing. So now I just listen.

Where I think it comes from

I don't really know, but I believe it comes from somewhere deep in my psyche. My mind is telling me something. Maybe teaching me a lesson. Maybe pulling up something from a trauma I haven't finished processing, the stuff that led to all those years of feeling like I wasn't worth much.

I don't always figure out the message while I'm making the piece. Sometimes I look at it months later and go, oh. There it is.

That's what makes it intuitive. Not that I made it up as I went. Not that I didn't sketch it first. It's that something in me knew before I did.

Why the difference matters

Working without a plan isn't intuition. That's improvising, and there's nothing wrong with it.

Intuition is your body handing you information your conscious mind hasn't caught up to yet. It's uncomfortable. Sometimes it drags up things you'd rather leave alone. It is not a vibe you put in your bio because it sounds good.

If the phrase fits you, use it. I'm not the intuition police, and plenty of artists mean exactly what I mean by it.

But if you're using it because it's what everybody's using, you're selling yourself short. Ask what you'd call your process if that phrase didn't exist. Whatever comes out is going to be truer, and it's going to hit a lot harder than the words people have already scrolled past forty times this week.

Your turn

If you make things, I want to know: have you ever had that pull? The one you couldn't explain and couldn't ignore? Tell me about it.

And if you overrode it, tell me how that turned out. I already know, but tell me anyway.