Chapter 1
The Nature of the Problem
-
Nowadays, making art means facing uncertainties and doubts.
- Doing something nobody might care whether you do, doing something that you might not get rewarded for.
- Making art means despite these hurdles you find meaning within the work itself.
-
fatalism: the fear that your fate is in your hands, but your hands are weak.
-
Assumptions
- Artmaking involves skills that can be learned.
- It's not a magical gift.
- Being an artist means:
- learning to accept yourself (makes your art personal)
- follow your own voice (makes your art distinctive)
- These qualities are clearly something that can be learned.
- Art is made by ordinary people.
- A flawless creature does not need to make art.
- In turn, this means an ideal artist would be an ordinary person with all the flaws and weaknesses.
- These are things that get in the way of making art, but it is what drives us to make art.
- Making art has to do with overcoming these.
- Making art and viewing art are different at their core.
- Making art gives you an accurate measure of what you intended to do and what you actually did.
- To everyone else, what matters is the end product. To yourself, and you alone, the process is what matters.
- Artmaking can be lonely and thankless.
- There is no good reason anyone else should care about any art other people make.
- You learn how to make your work by making your work.
- learning to make your own work is not anyone else's problem.
- Artmaking has been around longer than the art establishment.
- People have been making art long before the concept of self, consciousness has entered humanity.
- The notion of art being a self-expression is a rather contemporary concept.
- If you make flawed art, does that make you a flawed person?
- If you make no art at all, are you not a person at all?
- It is best to not get into the trap of this and think that art has many paths.
Backlinks