Here's the thing.

Here's the thing

by

Judith Miller

   Here's the thing. And if it seems deceptively simple that's because it is. If you want to be an artist, it's as easy for you to choose to be one as it is for you to choose to be a bookshelf, an accountant, a salesman or someone who fools around with peanuts all day.
   I know. I know. I have heard the arguments against this straightforward proposition. I have listened to those who say, oh, but you're wrong. Quite wrong. Don't you know that it's difficult, maybe impossible to make a living as an artist? Jobs have dwindles to a handful. Galleries are closing. Magazines are on the ropes. Competition is fierce. And the pay! why, the pay will leave you eating chickpeas on toast for years. Maybe forever! Better to do something that pays well. Better to do something there is a demand for. Better to do almost anything at all other than being an artist.
   Well, I will agree there is something to be said for such arguments. But, and this is my rebuttal, is it better to fool around with peanuts all day because there are a lot of peanut-pushing jobs to be had, jobs that will allow you to buy rib-eye steaks and champagne and still leave change rattling about in your pockets?
   You can answer yes only, I do mean only, if you love fooling around with peanuts. Because the truth is, being among the peanut pushers and swigging down bubbly every night in an effort to wash away your dreams of a different life, a life without those damn nuts, is hard. A good deal harder than you might think. A damn sight harder than eating chickpeas into eternity.
   So let's start with this. You want to wake up every morning charged to the gills. You want to open your eyes to each new day knowing you are going to do the thing you love. And you've decided this means you are going to be an artist. How do you start?
   Start by say it out loud. I am an artist. When people ask you what you do, don't serve up the day job with an apologetic aside of but I hope to be, would like to be, I am working to ban an artist. No. Say this: I am an artist.
   Try that again. I am an artist. When they ask what sort of artist, tell them. And do not be vague in that sort of oh, I do watercolors, pencil drawings or paint scenes. Be specific. It will make you specific. It will make you focus on exactly why you want to be an artist and what you want to say as an artist. I am working on a children's book about green eggs and ham; story-boarding a film based on the idea of Pinocchio as a boy in the suburbs with scissors for hands; I am designing ads that will make everyone on the planet want a person music player; I am illustrating Goth CD covers that will make people wear black and pierce their skin; I am animating a short film based on my alien abduction last May, working on a graphic novel based on the reinvention of Cain and Abel as A-list celebrities; I am designing book jackets for Irish novelists featuring dragon riders; painting paintings of the Tahitian rain forest; creating a line of gift ware based upon a yellow smiley face; spray painting graffiti on subways in NYC or painting the same haystacks at different times of the day. Get it? It doesn't matter what you do as long as you are passionate about doing it because that's what an artist does. That's your portfolio. That's what you show them when opportunity knocks. And it will, even if you have to travel three thousand miles to stand on the other side of the door and knock first. When you have something to say and you are passionate about saying it, you will find an audience.
   But you say, how can you be sure I will find that audience? In the ghetto called art, shouldn't I at least try to be making the kind of art that might make me some money? I mean, I really, really, really want to paint haystacks at different times of the day. Early morning, late morning, noon, late afternoon, dusk. You know, just to see what the light will do. Just to see how the haystacks will look. But my mother, father, uncle, brother, teacher, friend, old acquaintance, stranger on the street told me I should be concentrating on cadavers for medical illustrations. There's a demand, they said. And it pays. I get nervous. What if I don't like chickpeas? I know it sounds tough but I'll answer you this. Never mind. forget about being an artist. Start gathering nuts.
   I am disappointed though. I thought we had an agreement. I thought I heard you say, out loud, I am an artist. I don't remember adding a qualifier. Something along the lines of "but I want to make money" or "I don't want to work too hard."
   So, deep breath. Once more in to the breach. Out loud. I am an artist.
   No more buts. I have heard them all.  I have heard the "I have to learn my craft." "I must study at the feet of the masters." "I need to learn the rules before I break them." "I must learn pastels and inks, watercolors and oils, acrylics and collages, lithographs, Photoshop, May and that twig and pudding mixed media thing." I will tell you now. Technique, as an endless exercise, is fruitless. It does not make you an artist. The time you spend crosshatching lines onto the head of a pin might warrant a momentary flash of admiration but then what? Will anyone care in six months? In ten years? Look on technique as a means to an end. It can help you say what you want to say. It can help you tell your story.
   Did you get that? Or did you gloss over it? Here it is again.
   Say what you want to say. Tell your story. Show me your passion. If you have yet to find your passion, go forth. Seek it out. Don't stop until it hits you over the head and knocks you silly. Without passion you can be a journeyman or a craftsman or a tradesman. You cannot be an artist. Find the thing, that special something that fascinates you and reinvent, reinterpret, reimagine it. Show it to us the way you see it.
  Oh, and be aware of the enormous marketing machine feeding us entertainment nanosecond by nanosecond. It requires enormous mounts of fodder. Do not view this as a bad thing. Don't ask how do I compete? How do I get noticed? How do I not get chomped up and spit out? View it like this. Welcome to global giant. The fact that it requires enormous amounts of fodder presents you, the artist, with enormous opportunities. Getting noticed isn't hard. The trick is to avoid the quick chomp and spit. And that's easy. Show and tell a rousing good story. You will always have an audience. You will wake up charged to the gills in love. You will look forward to that dinner of chickpeas.
   Just say this: "I am an artist. I will show and tell you my passion."
   Say it out loud.