Sorry about the light blogging, but I’m deep in work mode.
I’m trying to bring Gone to Amerikay home in the next 30 days, while revving up the other books I am scheduled to do. My brain hurts.
The gardens are also incredibly productive. There’s been so much rain we’ve been unable to do a lot of the yard work that must be done. I spent three hours yesterday squeezing it in.
A documentary film crew is coming in this week. So glad I am not going to San Diego, even though I will miss all my friends and a chance to thank my noble patrons face to face.
I fell behind on some of my shipments, but should have everything packed and out of here next week. With many humble apologies.
Also, I have a few choice items on ebay right now. I haven’t auctioned anything for myself on ebay in years, but ebay does come in handy at times. Several choice pieces sold for Buy it Now prices, but there’s some great pages from a number of my projects up for auction right now.
A few years ago, I had the great privilege to work with J Michael Straczynski on a series called The Book of Lost Souls. Issue 3 was a particularly compelling installment.
A young girl, haunted by her dead lover, lives on the street and dreams of a life as an artist. She’s haunted by a voice: a voice Jonathan describes as “The Voice of Reason and Resentment.”
The voice of madness is the voice that says, “Someday people will listen to me.”
It is the voice of madness that says, “I will make little black marks on pieces of paper, and those marks may one day change the world.”
It is the voice of madness that whispers to us in the midnight silence. “I am not what you see. I have dreams, and though I have nothing tonight, tomorrow I will escape this place.”
The voice of madness is the voice that believes, despite all evidence to the contrary, that sustains us when logic demands we surrender to the louder voice – the Voice of Reason and Resentment. And it always comes in the guise of those who love us most, who only want the best for us. And the knives come softly, oh, so softly…”I’m just trying to protect you…”
Listen to your voice of truth. It only sounds mad to people who can’t hear their voice.
Creators become frozen with indecision about their work. Some may think it’s due to fat egos. Sometimes it is. Others may think it’s due to an insufficient ego. Sometimes it is.
Enjoying the work, or perceiving value in your own work does not mean anyone else will enjoy it as you do.
The professional creator who expects to make a living on their work must always be aware of its value to others. Otherwise, they will need to get a day job.
Assuming that what is of value in you will be of value to others – and finding out it is not – is a source of great pain for many artists. Much of the time, the world does not place a value on what the artist produces.
Everyone wants to believe they make a contribution. Only artists are told that they should expect to be grateful merely for the right to make marks on paper. Anything beyond that is just feed for the ego!
Making art does not make pain go away. Sometimes art expresses pain.
Sometimes art is a shout. Sometimes art is a scream.
Art is like marriage: the lie is in the happy wedding. There will be tempests after. You must be prepared for sorrow as well as joy, to experience the times when art is hard, and unhappy. Difficulties will imprint themselves on your art, and those real world difficulties aren’t something one can dismiss as the fripperies of ego.
Art is about communication and it doesn’t always communicate what you want, it doesn’t always communicate what other people want.
Sometimes the world does not want to listen to you.
There is a great deal of pain, for many artists, in putting everything they have into the work, putting it out for all to see, and having the world give a collective, “No thanks.”
Why should we pay attention to any of this anyway?
You have to find your own joy. You have to believe in your own value.
That is why you make art.
Don’t let the rest of the world make your art about them. You need them to buy your art so you can make a living at art. But you don’t need to make a living at art to make art your life.
I am baking stone ground mustard bread, and preparing to make a big German feast of suaerkraut in wine, potatoes, and sausages. So very excited and happy. Domestic goodness abounds.
I also just got my first regular page rate check since early November. Boy oh, boy, the excitement of living between royalties, and budgeting the dreaded advance against royalty check to last four months longer than the assignment originally called for. Fun times. I’ve been very grateful for all the mail order sales. Between your generous patronage and my royalty checks, the fridge remained full and the farm was saved! Huzzah!
I’ve also given up web surfing for Lent, so let’s see how much more productive I am over the coming weeks.
I went out this week for only the second time since December, frantic to get more packing material to ship orders. Ran out. Again. Which is a good thing.
Not too long ago, I read comments from the You Should Just People about how easy and cheap it is to do business online. Why, these people simply could not believe that there were any serious costs associated with a self employed and marketed artist!
Think again. Shipping costs ran about $1000 over the last couple of months. The A Distant Soil graphic novel sets weigh in at just over 4lbs, punching them over the weight limit for cheap international shipping. Every single package costs more than $40 to ship! 80 graphic novels went out at a cost of $800 in postage alone. Naturally, I fold that cost in to the orders, but I give my foreign customers a fairly large discount on the books to make up for it. Otherwise, we’d have to add another $800 to the cost of those books, and most fans wouldn’t be able to afford them.
The big plus of my new digs is the expansive space: there are no longer any storage costs for my inventory, which used to devour up to $240 a month. Now I can pass that savings on to my readers! Since I am no longer in a little condo, I have a lot of space to put things away, sort them and properly care for them.
While I haven’t finished sorting my huge pile of original art, the work room is now tidy and organized, with plenty of space for everything I need. I should post more pictures. You will all be terribly impressed at my progress, and I await your squeals of approval. Now that my shelving isn’t surrounded by clutter, I can get to all my art tools. I must say, I won’t need to buy any. For a long time. I have a hoard.
I gathered some up stuff up and gave it away, including a mint in box high end airbrush compressor and three different airbrushes, none of which I have ever made much use. I bought them years ago when I was flush, and meant to get the hang of it, but I simply never cared for the airbrush thingy. Since so much of my work is painterly, or hybrid Photoshop, I decided the airbrushes should go to a good home.
I also dug up my incredible stash of antique art supplies, some more than 100 years old. Many of them came from artists like Frank Kelly Freas. They are packaged so beautifully, I have not been able to bring myself to part with them. They are extraordinary reminders of what real draughstman are: so much of “drawing” today is just faking it – tracing in Photoshop and whatnot.
Some illustrators used navigation tools to draw properly. They could have piloted their way to the moon on a slide rule. I also inherited beautiful brass tools whose use I can’t make out. I think I will try to frame them.
As for the rest, I am going to contact an illustration museum and see if they would like these things for an exhibit. There are old crosshairs, and rubylith here: I am sure the Photoshop crowd has no idea what this stuff is.
Speaking of people who actually know how to draw, this week’s art crush is Robert Liberace. A classicist. And how. He has outstanding videos you may purchase. They are pricey, but worth every penny.
Official Katy Perry music video. Not just because it’s an upbeat tune, but because she’s wearing cool threads that look like she went shopping on Ovanan.
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.
