Some 2021 Art advice! …that overlaps into some other matters.

1.       Be careful when studying as an artist not to expend too much effort in studying art. It isn’t self-generating. To study art, study the world and anything you can find. Studying how previous artists have come to achievement may hold some gems and techniques, but these are not recipes, they are not magical Gods and their progress will have limited value to your progress. How to achieve art is out in experiencing the world, not studying artists or the vague popular sense of art. Studying art runs the danger of becoming “Astronomers who never look at the stars.”

2.      Beware folie à deux or shared delusional disorder (SDD). Like a magician who after beguiling the audience with tricks starts to believe they are actually magical or divine. Understand what art can and can’t do and why. With the high level of the uncanny and extraordinary that art can produce don’t push so far that you make your audience crazy, and don’t allow your vanity to swallow you up because you can see the powerful effect you have on people. Personality cults seem to sneak in and seep through the cracks far too often. There is nothing admirable or good in conning anyone, and cons are even more destructive when you are caught up in your own con game by believing your victims.

3.      Understand words and terms. Two important words to understand are “Culture” and “Tradition”. Culture comes from the root “KL” or “Kul” and means to make grow or to nurture. Like “agriculture” or “cultivate”. Culture is the effective practices that come about through taking care of and making a thing grow. So the cultures in civilization can be thought of as the additive and beneficial practices of a society in an ongoing way. Cultures can’t be appropriated. There is no “Cultural Appropriation”. This is a nonsense term. As a rule, throughout the world, the tales of the “Culture bringer” is always an outsider, a foreigner, a stranger, who brings new benefits, inventions, and knowledge. Cultures are made to be shared out, grow, and spread as effective useful practices wherever they land, and they are meant to be adapted to people, climate, region, etc. So feel very, very, free to take the best from any and every culture you find to grow what comes next. Tradition is something very different. Tradition is what is handed down (Latin- Tradeo- to hand down or hand over as in “trade”). Traditions are practices and ways from the past. Some may be useful. Some may be pleasant. Some may be completely innocuous. Some may be incredibly horrendous. Often, they are incredibly horrendous and detrimental. Female genital mutilation is part of no culture but is part of a widespread tradition. Cultures grow, traditions freeze a practice or stunt development. When something is “traditional” or what can be called “the old ways” it should instantly be held in some suspicion and reviewed under the question “Is this helpful and beneficial? Is this needed or just an expensive habit”. Time doesn’t stop for authority, and every practice needs an update to be effective. Art falls into the range of “Culture” and has “traditional” tools and some tactics, but it is not authorized by tradition. What’s handed down by tradition in art is always due for an upgrade and fix. It isn’t divine. Stop using Culture to justify horrible traditions or misdeeds and poor practice. The two terms are not interchangeable.

4.      Be careful about what it “means” to be an “Artist”. Because it doesn’t mean anything. It is very dangerous to LARP traditional stereotypes and characters. It doesn’t “mean” anything to be an artist. Imitation and play-acting is okay for children but damaging to adults. Being an artist has some peculiar idiosyncrasies because you are gaining expertise in types of experience, communication, and perception. But this isn’t “meaningful”. It doesn’t turn you into a “type”. Like anyone who learns anything to expertise, it falls outside the average. But this doesn’t mean you turn into Lord Byron. Keep track of how bland and undramatic your life is. It is important. Trying to be a character whose life follows a moody, Romantic, plotline will cripple you. It makes you stupid. Your unique (but maybe uninteresting) experiences are also your building blocks. Be very careful about feeling gratified and very emotional and slipping into that super fakey artist whisper voice.  And don’t let anyone else simplify and characterize you as an “Artist Type”. On hearing someone demean or stereotype you as a type or a known sort, walk away from them. I mean this! Turn on your heel and walk away. This type of character casting isn’t a benign and simple mistake. It is passive-aggressive and tactical. Being an artist means you can create the effects of art (extraordinary experiences) not that you are a caricature.

5.      Understand the value of your expertise…in all directions. Know where you have aptitude and where you don’t. Now start preparing scripts and ways of addressing conflict. A trick of language and communication is that it is rarely unique and spontaneous. Practice in areas is needed. If you are being devalued, underpaid, rejected, and find yourself losing out in negotiations and opportunities, understand your counterparts are well-practiced and rehearsed in negotiation and devaluing. So you need to buttress your language, statements, and ideas with scripts, rehearsals, analysis, and the ability to calmly debate and confront. Artists often squirm under this idea. Stop that! Stop it right now! In many ways, it is childish to be endlessly passive and complaining about how people take advantage of your passivity. It is as much a sneaky tactic as is the bullying of those looking to undervalue (or "re-normalize") you. It is asking others to help you and carry the burden of what should be your bravery and needed preparation. If you find you have a complaint, know your role in it, and before you complain or fret see if you are ill-prepared. If you are stop complaining and use that same energy to prepare, analyze, and build your bravery. Know your strengths and vulnerabilities and appropriately reshape. You have to craft you as much as you do any artwork you are creating. 

6.      Stop that imposter syndrome nonsense! Stop it right now! At first, I looked at this with some sadness and concern. But on mulling it over here are some more cynical thoughts:

a.      What is an imposter? Someone misrepresenting their identity or knowledge as something higher or better than is factual. 

b.      To feel like an imposter in art, means 2 things: 1.There is a set identity of the authentic artist and one is not this identity 2. One is unsure about their skills and knowledge in regard to art, especially in comparison to the real Artists.

c.      It is a problem if you haven’t sorted some personal, demonstrable, standards and definitions for what works in art and whether you are achieving these. This might be forgivable as a young artist. But not with experience. This should be sorted very early on. I do notice artists evade the idea of definition in art, and buy into superstitions and magical late 19th philosophies of “expression in art”. That “Objective/Subjective” nonsense (which is actually a cover for ideas built in the Reformation). This will create dissonance. If you don’t arm yourself with some knowledge, definitions, and standards, it will be confusing when you try to achieve something driven by the standards of experience built by the human brain.

d.      Check and see if you actually are an imposter. That nagging feeling might be right. Again, this would need definitions, standards, and demonstrable claims to get clarity. Your doubts might be justified. But don’t panic! If you are an imposter you don’t have to remain an imposter. Once you have some standards, definitions, and some ways of testing your effects, you will be on your way. It won’t be easy but it will be authentic. "Fake it till you make it" is reprehensible.

7.      Keep this in mind: Though it may seem there is a way, or a set course, or a road to achievement and success, there isn’t. You are always on the border of the frontier and will have to carve out the future through invention and dynamic thinking. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is still working smoothly. You can’t rest on your laurels or someone else’s laurels that you are imitating. Any artist giving you advice or consultation is not a cure or authorized representation of the great edifice. The majority of your art will have to come from you. Other artists can only add tiny assistance. It helps, but it isn’t the keystone. Though we are all in it together, your achievements will largely be your own. 

8.      Pro tip! Don’t try to draw drawings. Drawings are windows and doors. Try to create methods of travel, even if that is traveling to other identities and seeing through other eyes. “Drawings” are a type of product based on marks made. Windows and doorways are something to look through. If you look through the window and it is dirty or blurry, you will want to figure out how to clean it up. That’s how you progress in drawing- by not trying to draw, but trying to see something and see it thoroughly.

9.      Okay…one last obligatory “we are all in it together”. The End.