THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 128 - WHY ART?

I have thought a lot about why anyone would want to be an artist. For me, it wasn’t so much a desire as a compulsion. I remember talking to my mom about it when I was young & her looking dismayed & saying, “That’s a hard life.” The thing is, the parts of my life that have been tough have been so not because of wanting to be an artist, but because of other things that would have been there regardless of whether I wanted to be an artist or not. It’s also odd for me to say “wanted to be” because now I just feel like it’s something I am. It’s easier to say that it’s something I’ve always been, especially after the long battle to be established. For me the mark of being a successful artist has always been to make all my money off art & also being able to support my family off what I do. That was a personal goal, not the definition of being an artist. There’s tons of personal caveats & we’ll get into those. But in further thinking about it, being an artist is just the declaration of being an artist & then the harder job of selling other people on that. It is definitely tough to make a living off your art, but it’s not impossible. It’s bizarre to me that we live in America where money is just about as important as blood or air or water to make things go along but making money was not even an afterthought in the schooling that I had, I don’t know how it was for you. 

So, the first step I could identify in being an artist is the compulsion to create. 

The second is doing your best to maintain your clarity on what you want to do as far art goes. This is a constantly moving target, your perspective changes as you grow, but there should be an attempt at having a continuity of perspective from when you were a kid to now. People fixated on age call this “never growing up”, people fixated on authenticity call this “keeping it real” or “not selling out”, I think of it as keeping your vision intact. 

The third is to figure out a way to communicate your art to other people. This is ultimately about communication. There are artists who skip this step entirely & just produce works for themselves & those fortunate enough to share their lives with them. This is enough for most artists, but it was never enough for me. I caught the self-publishing bug when I was in grade school & that ability to communicate with a larger audience has always been important to me. 

x SEAN

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