Sculptor, painter, illustrator, writer, feral small business owner
I unapologetically enjoy anime, video games, psychedelia, old school goth, space pirates, elves, and spiders.Follow my adventures here. Art links above. :)
Photo reblogged from Lost Arcana with 3,437 notes
And since writing is an art…this applies. As for no.9 replace with publisher/editor/random reader etc
Good for writers on that one. Me however, I’ve got some responses/reactions to insert, so, we’ll just break this down by the numbers:
1. True. That said, you still need to fucking look at other artists. Nobody creates in a vaccuum, and neither should you- if for no other reason than to make sure you’re not inadvertently doing the exact same work someone else is. Your final piece does not exist in a vaccuum, and neither should you while making it.
2. True. This also goes for friends. Your best judges of your work? Random average people who are unconnected to you and the piece.
3. Bullshit. All of us have pieces we made to express the negatives as well as the positives. Sometimes those pieces remind us of the crap we went through while making that particular work. And ‘feeling like shite because of the stuff connected to a piece’ all too often feels like ‘feeling like shite because of the piece itself.’ That is not an accurate measure of success. Don’t judge it by how it’s enriched your life. Judge it by it’s effect on the lives of others.
4. True. And do not fucking assume that to mean learning about art specifically. Learn about fucking everything. When you stop growing, you start fucking dying.
5. Balls. Art’s value can be measured in dollars. Not in a specific dollar amount, but the fact that someone likd the piece enough to fork over money for it? That is a measure of success.
6. Honest work as not a fucking thing to do with beauty. Do not fucking confuse the two. Honest work can indeed be beautiful, but it can also be ugly, painful, sad, enraging, and any number of other effects. Don’t equate good art to beautiful art. You’ve comparing oranges and diesel engines.
7. No, and Warhol proved this- regurgitation can definitely be art- just do something new with it. Don’t just vomit it back up, play with the chunks. Move them into new configurations. burn some of it if need be. Make modern culture eat itself if you have to, but commentary on existing culture, or responses to it have been part of artistic expression since cave-painting days.
8. Bullshit. If they’re your family, expect them to educate themselves about your art if they give a rat’s ass. Why? Because it is your work. If they are your family and if they do support you, they should be taking these steps themselves as part of understanding you- if not, fuck them. They’re not the support you need.
9. Balls- be authentic as you want, but if you want to be paid for your work, you do need to take their input into account. I’m not saying to do a damned thing they suggest, but do at least listen to them and actually consider their input, instead of just giving them a smile and nod. That said, if you’re just creating for yourself and don’t care about eating and making rent with a particular piece, then fuck ‘em. sometime you must create for yourself, rather than simply making work that you can sell.
I’d get into the rant about clients and just what they need to fucking learn to talk to artists in the first place, but that’s a rant for later.
10. This. Always this. That said, there’s nothing wrong with trying for it, just don’t let the fact that a piece isn’t perfect hold it back.
Source: poeticpenumbra
