I wanna be an artist

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Cuz I love art, of any type. I've always wanted to write songs.... But I'm just not creative. And I know I'll never be as brilliant or original as my heroes.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels this way..

― Nowell (Nowell), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:35 (twenty years ago)

Be true to your muse, Nowell, and don't dare betray that talent that God gave you. Don't you dare.

― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:39 (twenty years ago)

well, you do hate yourself. Maybe you can use that.

― Pears can just fuck right off. (kenan), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:41 (twenty years ago)

I'm gonna pretend I didn't see the sarcasm in that and continue being serious.

See, I don't think I have any talent. I don't think I'm "gifted" or "special". And I hate being told that I am.

And hating oneself isn't original enough.. Is it? I don't know..

― Nowell (Nowell), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:43 (twenty years ago)

HALLELUJAH

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:44 (twenty years ago)

Don't bother. Be a computer programmer instead.

― Carl Winslow is WHAT!?!? (deangulberry), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:44 (twenty years ago)

xxpost:
I think I was being sarcastic too, and mocking the kind of comments you're describing, if that's any consolation.

― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:45 (twenty years ago)

no, be a permanent grad student. do temp work. live in limbo.

― Emilymv (Emilymv), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:46 (twenty years ago)

But I like art!

― Nowell (Nowell), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:47 (twenty years ago)

Nowell, it is cliched as it is true--we are all artists. It is as part of being human as calling someone "pretentious" for considering herself more artistic than others. But nevermind that. The dreams you dream at night and the thoughts racing through your head all day are more beautiful than anything anyone could ever paint, write, compose, or whatever. James Joyce's Ulysses, considered by many the finest novel of the dearly departed 20th century, is one long testament to how much more epic a day in real life is compared to the greatest work of literature in our culture--The Odyssey. That is all inspirational digression by way of saying, Nowell, if you want to be esteemed as an artist, keep it real, respect art, develop taste, and most of all hone skills.

― Henry Darger, Monday, 3 January 2005 19:48 (twenty years ago)

I just want to make sure - are you being serious?

― Nowell (Nowell), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:49 (twenty years ago)

Cuz if you are and not just trying to fuck with me...Thank you. For real.
I'm such a cheeseball..

― Nowell (Nowell), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:49 (twenty years ago)

Nowell, your guile and persistence are types of art in their own way.

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:50 (twenty years ago)

But I'm not original. My ideas are not original. I LACK originality.
Fucking A, I have to go to class...

― Nowell (Nowell), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:51 (twenty years ago)

You've certainly got me fooled.

I've always wanted to write songs.... But I'm just not creative.
You're going to let that stop you?!? I've got two words for you: Marc Bolan. I got the box(ed) set for Xmas and suffered through one whole CD and part of another listening to Tyrannosaurus Rex before I got to the good (minus "yrannosaurus") stuff.

― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:52 (twenty years ago)

I am being as serious as I can be, which isn't very, but I am certainly not being mean spirited. It takes a lot of work to be considered an artist, because so many people would like to be. Keep at it and be humble and eventually the protective layer between your inner light and the artificial social selves you create will become unveiled. You will then be creating art as naturally as you dream at night and daydream throughout your waking hours.

By the way, good primers about dealing with the haters are William Blake's poems (see especially "The Marriage between Heaven and Hell") and Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. Good luck and enjoy!

― Henry Darger, Monday, 3 January 2005 19:53 (twenty years ago)

Henry Darger Off The Money.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:54 (twenty years ago)

"Freddy, as a younger man, I was a sculptor, a painter, and a musician. There was just one problem: I wasn't very good. As a matter of fact, I was dreadful. I finally came to the frustrating conclusion that I had taste and style, but not talent. I knew my limitations. We all have our limitations, Freddy."

― marianna lcl (marianna lcl), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:56 (twenty years ago)

Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit

― Michael White (Hereward), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

xpost:
What is that from, The Horse's Mouth?

― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

Trahimur omnes laudis studio

― Michael White (Hereward), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:59 (twenty years ago)

Nothing great is made without a mixture of dementia?

― Cicero?, Monday, 3 January 2005 20:00 (twenty years ago)

"controversial"

― Ian John50n (orion), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:01 (twenty years ago)

What is that from, The Horse's Mouth?

I don't think so, but that's a great movie.

― Pears can just fuck right off. (kenan), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:03 (twenty years ago)

http://www.pilmeyer.com/czukay/hobud2.gif

― LSD, called the aristocrat (ex machina), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:06 (twenty years ago)

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels!

― marianna lcl (marianna lcl), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:09 (twenty years ago)

I'm an artist (painting!) now.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:10 (twenty years ago)

Nowell, check this out if you have time. Pay particular attention to the "Proverbs of Hell."

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/blake_ma.html

― Henry Darger, Monday, 3 January 2005 20:11 (twenty years ago)

POST ONE JPEG (XP)

― Carl Winslow is WHAT!?!? (deangulberry), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:11 (twenty years ago)

Oh, I'm not in the Dean Gulberry class. Not yet.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:12 (twenty years ago)

GET ONE IRONY

― Carl Winslow is WHAT!?!? (deangulberry), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:13 (twenty years ago)

RFI: Are Nowell and Henry Darger two Sally-Field-In-The-Title-Role-Of-Sybil-like aspects of the same person?

― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:22 (twenty years ago)

Do something useful. IRONY MY SHIRTS!!!

― Michael White (Hereward), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:26 (twenty years ago)

But I'm not original. My ideas are not original. I LACK originality.

Well, there you go. So don't be an artist. Oh, I know... you want to be an artist.

See, the whole question here hinges on the presumption that somebody somewhere cares whether you become an artist or not, and nothing could be further fron the truth.

― Pears can just fuck right off. (kenan), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:30 (twenty years ago)

if you're an artist, you're an artist. if you want to be an artist, then be a hipster.

― Carl Winslow is WHAT!?!? (deangulberry), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:32 (twenty years ago)

I wanna be a poetaster.

― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:39 (twenty years ago)

xpost OTM. Part of being an artist is knowing that it's not cool, won't make you rich, probably won't get you anywhere except despised by your family and running with a very sketchy crowd, but doing it anyway because you kinda don't have any options. Artists do what they do to stay sane, not for mass approval.

― Pears can just fuck right off. (kenan), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:40 (twenty years ago)

I like art. Fascinating stuff.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:40 (twenty years ago)

Art is ok.

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:42 (twenty years ago)

Nobody but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

― Michael White (Hereward), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:42 (twenty years ago)

Art is like a meal you can't get enough of.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:42 (twenty years ago)

I once read a quote from one of the Butthole Surfers, possibly Gibby Haynes, that has stuck in my head for the past 10 years at least, because it is so true: "Art is just the last three letters of fart."

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:42 (twenty years ago)

xxxpost
I sure do love the way he sings that "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:43 (twenty years ago)

If you're taking advice from Gibby Haynes, then you obviously have bigger problems in your life than art.

― Carl Winslow is WHAT!?!? (deangulberry), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:43 (twenty years ago)

pears is dead right.

― music mole, Monday, 3 January 2005 20:45 (twenty years ago)

art

― .adam (nordicskilla), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:46 (twenty years ago)

fart, get it!

― Carl Winslow is WHAT!?!? (deangulberry), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:46 (twenty years ago)

art is interesting for many reasons

― .adam (nordicskilla), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:47 (twenty years ago)

Here is a novel you can read about the good old Bohemian scene.

― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:48 (twenty years ago)

go faux gay, nowell. its easier and you learn useful stuff.

― :| (....), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:53 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 133 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Search: Charles Willeford's The Burnt Orange Heresy

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:13 (twenty years ago)

Why don't you take the Genesis P-Orridge approach (which overlaps a lot with the Napoleon Hill approach, possibly even including the sex magick, though that's not what I'm talking about): find out what artists you admire have done, how they have lived, how they possibly got where they are, and then maybe borrow some of their approaches to being or becoming an artist.

Also, find a copy of A.R. Orage's essay "Doing What One Really Likes" or something like that. I think it's a pretty sane, if very dry, approach to the subject of doing as one really likes or even lieks.

On the other hand, maybe it's more important for you to be doing something other than analytically thinking about all of this.

(Caveat: I am not an artist, nor do I consider myself a successful, person on my own terms.)

x-post: More reading lists. . .

― RS, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

Do try to keep up, Nowell.

― Carl Winslow and Jeanne-Claude (deangulberry), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:28 (twenty years ago)

Search: Charles Willeford's The Burnt Orange Heresy

Ken, is this the guy that wrote Miami Blues?

― .adam (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

Yup. That's the same guy.

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:42 (twenty years ago)

Okay, back to wanking...

You rang?

― Steely Zan (AaronHz), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 01:10 (twenty years ago)

Lurkers only!

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 01:12 (twenty years ago)

Start writing or painting or making music NOW. It might not be very good, but if you keep at it, you'll figure out what exactly you're good at doing and how to improve.

This is a better way to say what I was trying to further upthread. Do it, and you'll get better at it. But talking about it, thinking about it, pretending to do it, etc... none of those count as doing it.

― martin m. (mushrush), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 01:19 (twenty years ago)

That last sentiment will apply to you in other ways, sooner.

― Carl Winslow and Jeanne-Claude (deangulberry), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 01:20 (twenty years ago)

Here's a story...

When I was a kid I wrote a story about how when I grew up I wanted to marry a famous artist. Probably to soak up the glory I assumed he would garner, because he was a famous artist.

Then I grew up and although I'm not sure I qualify as an artist, I am in my fourth year in art school. I'm not famous, but I cut out the middle man.

That said, you don't have to make art to love art Nowell.

― papa november (papa november), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 05:07 (twenty years ago)

..But I'm just not creative. And I know I'll never be as brilliant or original as my heroes.

I believe we are all creative at some level and aspiring to be as good as any other artist is not necessary, like in any activity.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 10:11 (twenty years ago)

I think that I, considering what I want to be, am in the wrong place at the wrong time. (I'm not referring to ILX.)

― Nowell (Nowell), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 21:41 (twenty years ago)

Lemme guess: you want to be a concubine with a finger-paint set.

― I Am Curious (George) (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 21:45 (twenty years ago)

That said, you don't have to make art to love art Nowell.
This sentence keeps leaping out at me with the word "love" switched with the first "art" and the two "arts" collapsing into one, then going back to its original form in an oscillatory fashion.

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 21:47 (twenty years ago)

I read it as "you don't have to make art to love Nowell."

― I Am Curious (George) (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 21:48 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, that's a third state it jumps to!

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 21:50 (twenty years ago)

Right. Art. I will be an artist.

― Nowell (Nowell), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 21:52 (twenty years ago)

You go, girl! Forge that conscience of your race in the smithy of your soul!

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 21:53 (twenty years ago)

Yeah.

― Nowell (Nowell), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 21:56 (twenty years ago)

Well, I think ILX's work here is done. Someone lock this thread.

― martin m. (mushrush), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 21:57 (twenty years ago)

Don't do that! Not yet.

― Nowell (Nowell), Thursday, 6 January 2005 20:53 (twenty years ago)

I want to have more sex with artists. Crazy ones, preferably.

― Pears can just fuck right off. (kenan), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:03 (twenty years ago)

I'm not putting that goal down whatsoever, but I have to ask - Why?

― Nowell (Nowell), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

This ridiculous "artists-have-better-sex" meme stuffed down our throats by the likes of Something Wild and The Big Lebowski.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

I have no comment...Shit..

― Nowell (Nowell), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:06 (twenty years ago)

They don't have Blockbuster in Hawaii?

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:07 (twenty years ago)

No, I've just never...I think you can figure it out.

― Nowell (Nowell), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:08 (twenty years ago)

I went to film school because I used to want to be the next Ingmar Bergman. Then I wanted to be the next Jean-Luc Goddard. Then I wanted to be the next Stan Brakhage.

Then I got a day job making crappy videos for a defense company.

Don't become an artist unless you have connections and a trust fund. You'll end up either poor and miserable or rich & miserable.

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:12 (twenty years ago)

I'd rather be rich and miserable than, uh....Poor and miserable.

― Nowell (Nowell), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:13 (twenty years ago)

Artists like it in the butt, I hear. I can't remember what movie that's from.

― Pears can just fuck right off. (kenan), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:14 (twenty years ago)

Love Story

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:14 (twenty years ago)

But at least the poor & miserable get to keep their soul & dignity.

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:14 (twenty years ago)

I used to like it in the butt until I sold out. No, wait a minute, I never liked that...

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:15 (twenty years ago)

I did date an artist right after college. It wasn't so much that she was great in bed as that she made me feel totally inadequate.

Her: "That's it?"
Me: *whither*

― Pears can just fuck right off. (kenan), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:16 (twenty years ago)

Do the poor and miserable REALLY keep their soul and dignity? Yeah, they do, I guess. I've been poor and miserable before...

― Nowell (Nowell), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:18 (twenty years ago)

Kenan, as always, thanks for sharing!

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:20 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, but poor and miserable is romantic & cool in your early 20's. When you hit your late 20's-early 30's & you're still single, driving a '87 Hyundai, living in a one-bedroom apartment eating ramen noodles and waiting for your "big break" while your friends are all getting married, buying houses, etc.--not so cool anymore. And no matter what kind of person you are, you can't help but feel some kind of sense of failure, especially if you knew you were just as smart & had just as much potential as everyone else.

Thus, the catch-22 begins....

The "artist bug" is a terrible thing. You can't shake it once it grabs you, and it does nothing but drag you down when you live in a society that undervalues the artist.

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:25 (twenty years ago)

Or you could just...get a day job.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:30 (twenty years ago)

I'm still young. I don't think I thought being poor and miserable was
romantic and cool.
I'm not even twenty yet. I have a long, interesting life ahead of me. I hope.

― Nowell (Nowell), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:33 (twenty years ago)

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:35 (twenty years ago)

What?

― Nowell (Nowell), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:35 (twenty years ago)

Do try to keep up, Nowell.

― Carl Winslow and Jeanne-Claude (deangulberry), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:38 (twenty years ago)

With what? I am keeping up.

― Nowell (Nowell), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:39 (twenty years ago)

"Or you could just...get a day job."

uh, yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:40 (twenty years ago)

Then I agree with you!

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:42 (twenty years ago)

good! your are now my dear friend!

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:44 (twenty years ago)

Hugs and kisses all around.

― Nowell (Nowell), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:46 (twenty years ago)

ewwwww

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:46 (twenty years ago)

Ok - just handshakes, then.

― Nowell (Nowell), Thursday, 6 January 2005 21:49 (twenty years ago)

I smell an Excelsior.

― Captain GRRRios' Giggletits (Barima), Thursday, 6 January 2005 22:58 (twenty years ago)

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