What bread making is teaching me about being braver in my art

Last year while on holiday and feeling rather reflective, I decided I wanted to learn something new, a new skill to add to my repertoire, something to enrich my life - I decided I wanted to learn how to make bread!! Fast forward nearly 12 months and (thanks to a very good friend of mine who is an actual baker!! I know, how lucky am i?) I've started the process of learning, elbow-deep in flour, yeast, and uncertainty. What started as a holiday conversation is quietly becoming a new passion.

For me, it's not about making the perfect loaf, it’s about showing up, even when I feel I don;t know what I'm doing. It’s about learning how to begin with very little knowledge of the process and how to let go of certainty and embrace the unknown — skills that are just as essential in the studio as they are at the kitchen table.

Breadmaking, it turns out, is helping me to be braver as an artist.

When you try something new, like breadmaking—or any creative practice—you have to get comfortable with not knowing. You follow a recipe, but your hands don’t yet understand the language of dough and your head doesn't really understand what it is you're doing. You feel clumsy, unable to knead 'the right way' It’s easy to feel like giving up, or not trying again, and so easy to think “I’m not good at this.” It feels risky and vulnerable - and we all know humans are programmed to avoid unnecessary risk because we like to stay safe.

And this is also true when we are making art. Exactly the same feelings come up.

Making bread is teaching me to be braver, to trust in things I can’t see: fermentation, timing, transformation. You mix and knead, and then you wait. You have to believe that something is happening beneath the surface. And then you see it begin to grow and that feeling is priceless. Bravery means staying in that place of uncertainty, trusting the process and not being too invested in 'it turning out perfectly'

Art is like that. You might spend hours making something that feels like a mess. You might not understand why you’re drawn to a certain idea, or why it’s not working. But being brave is staying with it. Letting go of the need for certainty and trusting that the process itself is meaningful—even if the outcome is unclear.

There’s bravery in letting go of control—in allowing something to become what it wants to be, rather than what you imagined. That’s where creativity lives: in the unexpected. In the accidents. In the willingness to surrender your grip and see what emerges. And noticing when I let that happen in the kitchen made me realise I can do this in my art too.

There is always a risk in making something whether it be bread or art: it might not work. People might not get it. You might feel exposed. You take the raw, basic materials. You invest time, care, and attention. You breathe life into them. And then you offer them up—to yourself, to others.

And maybe it flops. Maybe it’s glorious. But the point is, you made something that didn’t exist before. That act alone is bold.

And the more I bake, the braver I become. Not because the loaves are perfect (although the ones I have made so far have been rather tasty), but because I keep showing up. I keep risking failure. I keep learning. And each time I do risk failure, I realise it ain't that much of a big deal. What is the worst that can happen, I need to buy more flour!!

This process is making me bolder in the studio. Less attached to outcome. More open to play, to mess, to magic.

Because in the end, being an artist isn’t about getting it right. It’s about daring to create anyway.

Whether it’s dough or a blank canvas, we are always beginning again. And with each beginning, we build the muscles of courage.

Not flashy, not loud—but steady, rising.

Like bread.