This post kind of continues along the lines of the last one, touching on the struggle between working for someone else and working for your art; that eternal struggle to have the time and energy to pursue your creative goals more fully. With focused effort and hard work towards lofty goals, yes it's possible to pursue your dream (evidenced by successful full-time artists), but where do you draw the line? At what point do you just go for it fully and how exactly do you even do that? (Those aren't rhetorical questions, I would really like to know the answer). Sometimes it can seem like every day for years is a struggle just to find motivation for a bit of creative juice and the energy and time to utilize it.
There are millions of us in this world who say well I am really a writer or I am working here, but I really am a painter. That last leg of the journey to doing your art full time requires a lot of risk taking, and sometimes it seems like I don't even know how to approach that risk. Well the first step obviously is creating the work, and the best way to do that is in solitude, found in the time necessary to be free and do the work.
You always hear the stories of great artists and writers, musicians, etc. who were born into a comfortable life, whose fathers and mothers taught them their art from the time they were born, and introduced them to all the proper connections their whole life. That is often the story when you read the biography of famous artists of the past. How many people who are given the gift of being able to dream deeply, are allowed the time and the effort needed to truly use this gift?
Working full-time or part-time even at a job that's not ideal because one has bills to pay and of course being tired after the day is done can seem as I said before, like an endless cycle. Maybe you get a little work done doing what you truly love to do, but I also imagine what I could do with a fully laid out wide open studio and lots of time (who doesn't though right?).
Speaking specifically though about Baudelaire's words above and dreaming.... One summer a number of years ago I did have the luxury of time, freedom and the concentration to write my dreams down every day. Where at first it seemed like a lot of random crazy objects, people, and events; after a few weeks a pattern emerged. Like filling in a puzzle that you don't have the whole picture to yet but eventually it starts to make sense. I am well on way in this journey of filling out that puzzle that is my art, with a bit of luck maybe eventually I'll be able to fill it in and complete the whole picture, or at least start to get some major holes filled in!
There are millions of us in this world who say well I am really a writer or I am working here, but I really am a painter. That last leg of the journey to doing your art full time requires a lot of risk taking, and sometimes it seems like I don't even know how to approach that risk. Well the first step obviously is creating the work, and the best way to do that is in solitude, found in the time necessary to be free and do the work.
"To dream magnificently is not a gift given to all men, and even for those who possess it, it runs a strong risk of being progressively diminished by the ever-growing dissipation of modern life and by the restlessness engendered by material progress. The ability to dream is a divine and mysterious ability; because it is through dreams that man communicates with the shadowy world which surrounds him. But this power needs solitude to develop freely; the more one concentrates, the more one is likely to dream fully, deeply."
-Charles Baudelaire
You always hear the stories of great artists and writers, musicians, etc. who were born into a comfortable life, whose fathers and mothers taught them their art from the time they were born, and introduced them to all the proper connections their whole life. That is often the story when you read the biography of famous artists of the past. How many people who are given the gift of being able to dream deeply, are allowed the time and the effort needed to truly use this gift?
Working full-time or part-time even at a job that's not ideal because one has bills to pay and of course being tired after the day is done can seem as I said before, like an endless cycle. Maybe you get a little work done doing what you truly love to do, but I also imagine what I could do with a fully laid out wide open studio and lots of time (who doesn't though right?).
Speaking specifically though about Baudelaire's words above and dreaming.... One summer a number of years ago I did have the luxury of time, freedom and the concentration to write my dreams down every day. Where at first it seemed like a lot of random crazy objects, people, and events; after a few weeks a pattern emerged. Like filling in a puzzle that you don't have the whole picture to yet but eventually it starts to make sense. I am well on way in this journey of filling out that puzzle that is my art, with a bit of luck maybe eventually I'll be able to fill it in and complete the whole picture, or at least start to get some major holes filled in!
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3 comments:
It's funny when I hear people sometimes talking wistfully about the writers and artists of the past--when they had the luxury of all that free time just to be writers and artists...never mind that, as you point out, they were part of a tiny class of extremely privileged people who had wealth, connections, etc....and, essentially it was only members of that tiny class who had any chance whatsoever of being artists. The vast majority were illiterate and spent their every waking hour in hard labor. Of course, in much of the world, it's still like that, but, one of the wonderful things about living in the modern Western world is that such a large portion of the population, even if they have to have day jobs to support themselves, can write and paint and make music and whatever.
By the way, a very generous friend has offered to redesign my blog (blogger template begone!) and I put Modern Art Quotes near the top of a list of blogs with designs I like to help give her an idea of what I want, for what I called a "cool, mildly trippy but understated design." Just thought I'd letcha know....
I totally agree with you Dr. Jay, thanks for reading. I can at least take comfort in the fact that as you say, I have more time to do my art than people in the past and other parts of the world, that's absolutely true.
Interesting point - most of us do have more capability to make art than ever before. Perhaps it's this in-between state that is more frustrating.
We can make art more easily now but it is hard to cross the line and do it full time. In the past, you either did it full time or not at all.
I do think sometimes people think they have to take a leap of the end of the pier to become a "real" artist. Not sure this is always necessary, maybe for some folks. I guess each of us needs to define exactly what constitutes the "line" that needs to be crossed to feel like we've committed to art in the way we want. Maybe full time isn't the only way...
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