Work is Good
on August 26th, 2009Thanks to Suzi Knight for these photos taken at Ringcon several years ago. I’m teaching Lord of the Rings actor Bruce Hopkins how to draw a head. I told him I could teach almost anyone how to draw a convincing human head in a half hour, and then proceeded to prove it.
Drawing is a technical skill almost anyone can learn. I can teach you how to draw. I can’t teach you how to be an artist. Only you can teach you how to be an artist.
There is nothing exclusive or special or magical about making art. Art is not a matter of privilege. Art is communication. Anyone who wants to make art can be an artist. If you have something to say or to convey, you have the absolute right to do so by making art.
Money doesn’t make art. Art does not have to make money.
Nothing can stop you from making art but you.
A professional artist makes money with art. If you do not make money with art, that does not mean you are not an artist. If you don’t make money with your art, that says absolutely nothing about the quality of your art. It does not devalue the importance of your art in any way. The only person in the world who can make art exactly like you is you. The art you make is completely unique because you are unique and that art came from you.
A professional artist depends on the value others place in their art. Other people must buy that art in order for a professional artist to thrive.
The only true value in your art is the value you place on it yourself. If the art has meaning and value to you, then that is enough for you. If other people do not value it, that has absolutely nothing to do with the quality that art brings to your life.
Ayn Rand once wrote that quality is intrinsic but value is relative. The value that others place on art by purchasing it or praising it does not make it good. Money does not make good art.
An ivory tower existence as a lone artist who works on art only for love does not make good art either. But you have the absolute right to make pictures or to write stories or to pen poetry regardless of whether or not that work will ever have any value to anyone else. If it has value to you, that is enough.
If you want to be a professional artist, you must be aware of the income your work produces, the business surrounding your art, and the value your art brings to others.
If you want to be an artist these are not your concerns.
Money is not a measure of success unless you decide it is. No one else has the right to determine for you what success means. If success means finishing a story and emailing it to your friends, that is success to you. If success means making The New York Times bestseller list, then that is success. If success is getting one book published, then that is success. If success is getting 100 books published, then that is success. Everyone has the right to their own definition of success.
Don’t live by someone else’s measure.
Make your own art. Make money on your own art. Don’t make money on your own art.
Circulate your pictures in a fanzine. Or write a best seller.
Your art is about you and no one else. If other people value it, that is great. If you are the only person who values it, that is more than enough.
It’s your art. It’s about you.
Colleen, this is one of the most beautiful inspiring (and truthful) texts I’ve read in a long long time. Thank you! Actually, is so easy to forget that we define our success – not money, not someone else. In a weird coincidence, this was precisely what I was needing to read today – to solve a personal question that had arisen and I was thinking about!! SMOOOOTCH!
It’s good to be reminded of this. Thanks!
There is no need for me to be demanding. I just want any person(s) that I don’t know, to take in my work, and enjoy it. That is it. Looking to make fat stacks of cash off of it isn’t what I do it for, now it would be nice, but not my motivation.
Thanks for smacking some sense into me, I really did need it.
I’ve followed your blog for a while and I think I have only left one comment before but I wanted to say these kind of words are good to read on days when everything in doing what you love to do is not easy.
Brava, Colleen! Soooo true!
This modern age has degraded the real meaning of “amateur” to mean ONLY “beginner, novice, untrained, unpolished”. The fact that it originally meant “one who did it for the love of it” has gotten lost. I use it over myself in calling myself an “amateur scholar” – but I always add “because I do it for the love of it” or “in its truest, original sense”.
I’ve qualified the use of “professional” when talking with writers, though. Mainly, because with writers, it is harder to see the improved skills that are so plainly evident in artwork. I usually try to convey to writers that it is not the *selling* of manuscripts that makes one a professional writer, it is one’s attitude about craft and dedication. Especially in writers from the comics arena who decide to “get serious” about pursuing their love of storytelling. If they continue to think of themselves only as “fan writers”, they will inhibit their own progress.
Wonderful post. All things I need to remind myself of. I’m going to print this out and put it next to my drawing board.
I couldn’t ask for better feedback than the response I get to the Work is Good posts.
I’m glad they are helpful to people. It is also good for me to remind myself of these things, sometimes.
Great post, Colleen! Due to a speech impediment I usually felt more comfortable conveying myself in writing and have done so for as long as I can remember. I’m not saying my writing is professional, but it can be cathartic after a stressful day or week. I mainly write for myself. There is a mentality that unless someone is paying for your work, whatever you’re doing is of no value.
Thanks for expressing that someone’s private self-expression is of merit.