Well, hello there. My name is Morgan Harper-Niggles. I'm an artist and a writer, and this week I'm sharing the most important lessons I've learned about life from the creative process. Today is day three of five, so if you'd like to hear day one and two, you can go back and listen to them. They were uploaded Monday and Tuesday. I hope that whether you consider

yourself to be a creative person or not, that these reminders and stories can help encourage you

along your journey as you prepare for whatever lies ahead. Thanks so much for tuning in. I'm

Morgan Harper Nichols. Whether you are someone who makes art or not, it is completely expected and known that

eventually artists put things out there and someone is going to give negative feedback.

It might come in the form of a social media post or a comment, or it may be something that someone says

to your face. And I have experienced a wide range of criticisms around my work, everything from

when I was in music to the things that I'm doing today. And some of them are more troubling than others. Some stay with me

longer than others. But there was one that I received years ago. And it was more of like a

questionable response to my work, but it was enough to get me worked up that it created an insecurity. But eventually,

that insecurity bloomed into something else. So here's the story. I was in graduate school for

my first semester, and I would eventually end up dropping out this semester. So I was only there

one semester. And I started talking with one of the other

students about art. Now at the time, I wasn't making the digital art that I'm making today.

This was right before I bought my first iPad. And I had done some paintings in high school. Now, I

haven't, I'm not trained in art. I didn't go to school. I just love to paint. So I literally would just

go to the craft store by canvas and just paint what I would consider maybe a even more basic form of

the things that I paint today. And I painted this landscape when I was a senior in high school that I was

really proud of. And it was mountains and a sunrise

and I had taken a picture of it prior to going to my graduate program. So I'm sitting here talking to

the student who's also an artist and I've just seen his work and his work's pretty incredible.

And he's like, well, do you have any pictures of yours? So I show him this picture from when I was a

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