An artist/writer I'd commission to work for me, gave up today in stark frustration over inabilities to come up with good and workable ideas for the project.
But then two mails later, he wrote and said that he'd gone for a walk, and now he has a great idea.
He apologized for getting so emotional and said that being an "eccentric artist" did not go well with being a Professional.
I said: "It is familiar. I think it is like this for all artists. The term "professional artist" is almost an oxymoron."
Except for hacks and the occasional (very rare) super-artist who never has any emotional struggles with his/her creativity, it is really, really tough to combine a business with real "art". An artist who works from the heart feels like a fraud if he is forced by a deadline to come up with something which he feels is inferior or unimportant work because he did not sense it came from the heart.
Other people may sometimes see work produced in this way as being excellent, and eventually the artist may even see it himself, but that does not make the struggle any easier.
5 comments:
Entire shelves have been filled with books about this issue. The problem with artists (as if they only had one!) is that the set of skills and mind-frame that enables them to be great artists are generally the opposite of what they need to be successful businessmen and women. This is why many successful artists usually work with an agent that takes care of the business end for them.
Nice post.
The intense involvement during creation is not conducive to "seeing" with clarity, so we are not sure of the "quality" of a piece.
A little time, and that which I wasn't sure of, surprises by being very much "up to standard".
Quite right.
Or sometimes the other way around.
the problem is always balancing right brain functions with left brain functions. I'm right-brained but not always right-minded, if you pardon my pun.
Shouldn't it still be possible to act like a professional, though? Not being one of those creative types I don't know what it's like, but really in what other line of work can you get away with throwing tantrums and shit like that?
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