Fall Break & All You Artists
So UNL's got fall break for two days, which means I've got time to catch up on grading and blog to you.
So lately I've been thinking about creativity and self-doubt. And the long-story-short of my convoluted, haphazard inquiry is this: Given that the world does not clamor for your art or mine, that the world does not beg for another book (when it publishes 250,000 a year in the U.S. alone), that the world wants you instead to feed the hungry, teach the uneducated, reverse climate change, maximize profits, and march on Washington--and meanwhile, the world wants to cut your pay and jack up your utility bill--given that you're slogging away in the midst of all that, and that no wildly adoring audience clamors for your voice and vision, how can you keep helping yourself make art?
A weird thing about blogging: sometimes when your brain has announced a theme-of-the-week, everything from the world comes sailing straight at it, on point.
An interactive sculpture by Miranda July:
Self-doubt will not devour her dreams.
Here's Jay Smooth's vlog on the little haters inside--which you don't need to view unless you happen to be subject to bouts of perfectionism, procrastination, or both:
(I'm having trouble embedding it, so just go here.)
And here's Mother Teresa's view (hey, this blog is nothing if not eclectic):
Keep making your art. This is a shout-out of love to you and your beautiful persistence. Maybe nobody needs your art, or maybe lots of people do. You can't know. Maybe the people who'll need it aren't even born yet.
The point is, you need to make it. It's how you're built. So keep on.
So lately I've been thinking about creativity and self-doubt. And the long-story-short of my convoluted, haphazard inquiry is this: Given that the world does not clamor for your art or mine, that the world does not beg for another book (when it publishes 250,000 a year in the U.S. alone), that the world wants you instead to feed the hungry, teach the uneducated, reverse climate change, maximize profits, and march on Washington--and meanwhile, the world wants to cut your pay and jack up your utility bill--given that you're slogging away in the midst of all that, and that no wildly adoring audience clamors for your voice and vision, how can you keep helping yourself make art?
A weird thing about blogging: sometimes when your brain has announced a theme-of-the-week, everything from the world comes sailing straight at it, on point.
An interactive sculpture by Miranda July:
Self-doubt will not devour her dreams.Here's Jay Smooth's vlog on the little haters inside--which you don't need to view unless you happen to be subject to bouts of perfectionism, procrastination, or both:
(I'm having trouble embedding it, so just go here.)
And here's Mother Teresa's view (hey, this blog is nothing if not eclectic):
If you are discouraged it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own power. Your self-sufficiency, your selfishness and your intellectual pride will inhibit His coming to live in your heart because God cannot fill what is already full. It is as simple as that.(For "God," it helps me if I read "emptiness," as in the Buddhist sense of no-ego, or presence--which for me functions as the real, true ground of art-making--but hey, whatever gets you through the night. You fill in the blank.)
Keep making your art. This is a shout-out of love to you and your beautiful persistence. Maybe nobody needs your art, or maybe lots of people do. You can't know. Maybe the people who'll need it aren't even born yet.
The point is, you need to make it. It's how you're built. So keep on.
Faye said:
Thank you (not that I'm "subject to bouts of perfectionism, procrastination, or both" of course, not me...).
October 20, 2009 2:51 PM