My friend Bridget sent me a post on instagram from yofishboy that I thought worth recapping here, to accompany my post Labors of Love, A creative life.
I’m not sure how to embed that content here, so I’ll just summarize it.
He suggests that artists with day jobs are the most important, yet least supported artists in our society.
Artists with day jobs tend to have real world perspectives and tend to be self deprecating because we spend our days with people that do not understand what we are doing. We can work on really Big Ideas, that doesn’t need to see a financial payoff. Working artists can take their time on assemble projects slowly and with great care.
For better or worse, the people close to artists with day jobs often view them as fantastical dreamers, or perhaps lottery players. We are viewed as crazy, pursuing a hobby or side hustle, when our work is as important as our day jobs, if not even more important.
I love that, and wanted to share. Oh, and this morning, from the New York Times’ daily email, there is an article The Morning: Get creative. A line in there jumped out at me:
Some people reading this are gifted painters and musicians, I’m sure. But others would probably say that they don’t have much artistic talent. What would you say to them?You are all creative in some way. There’s a definition of creativity that researchers use: generating something novel that is also useful. That could be the score to a movie. It could also be, as one expert told me, a brilliant solution to keeping your dog out of a certain area of your house. Or making up a weird game to play with your toddler.
I love that, too.
I gave a talk two weeks ago at Current Space here in Baltimore, at the closing of the Baker Artist Finalists exhibition. We were asked about what our plans were, or where we saw ourselves in our artistic lifecycle (or something like that).
I paraphrased a sentiment that I read in Brothers, which is that the best time of your artistic career is just before you “make it.” I think what Alex meant was one is hungry, and very working hard at (whatever the thing is), it’s exciting and unknown and one strives to be in top form. I suppose that everything changes once you “make it,” and the goals shift to focus on the next phase of (whatever the thing is).
I said “I don’t know what ‘making it’ looks like here, in this realm,” meaning the Baltimore Art Scene, and beyond. For myself, I keep asking questions and discovering ideas and I keep working. But, it got me to thinking about I want to accomplish. I think it’s important to name the goals. Otherwise, how can one work toward them?
The good and bad of being an independent animator/artist is that I am making this up as I go. The challenge lies in figuring out how to navigate a path that is unknown.
The above image shows how I view my artistic practice. I do my thing in my studio, and when I’m done, I (usually) put it out in the world. The work leaves my little bubble, and then others can do what they will with that output.
What happens inside the bubble concerns me. It’s private, and it’s the whole reason I do this. What happens outside of the bubble isn’t my business – it’s everyone else’s business.
And yet, the bubble has two layers. There is the back office (studio practice) which is the most comfortable part of the space. It’s where the soap gets made. The temptation is to stay here, and really, that would be just fine. Except, there are sometimes goals.
To achieve these goals, I have to step out of the back office and spend time in the front office. This is the part that interfaces with the world. It’s concerned with social media, and websites, and portfolios, artist statements, and responding to calls-for-entry. It’s the sales office, marketing department, and shipping department. It’s the office responsible to attending openings, and networking, and showing up in the world. The talk made me want to straighten up the front office, and spend some extra time here working on new goals.
I love that.