The product of weeks of thinking This has been something on my mind for some time. I wouldn't call it a rant, or really anything new, but it is a reality and I believe an important point to share: that artists are as productive as corporate workers in spite of not being able to show anything at the end of a particular day.
Look, I get what you're thinking - how is it possible that an artist is working when staring out the window or sitting in a cafe watching the world go by? There's no way to put this on paper. The fact of the matter is that it's true, and not only that but in fact the artist is probably working longer hours than you are when sitting at your desk. The artist can't shut off. From the moment I wake up to the moment I close my eyes at night I am thinking about art, even when I'm teaching English to my business students. Even when doing that very logical activity I am thinking about my paintings, my projects, my ideas, my past, my present, and my future. Artists believe that there's art in everything, and that's what I see when go through my day. This is every day, seven days a week, 365 days per year. It never shuts off, and I like that. In fact I love it. It defines me.
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Look, I get what you're thinking - how is it possible that an artist is working when staring out the window or sitting in a cafe watching the world go by? There's no way to put this on paper. The fact of the matter is that it's true, and not only that but in fact the artist is probably working longer hours than you are when sitting at your desk. The artist can't shut off. From the moment I wake up to the moment I close my eyes at night I am thinking about art, even when I'm teaching English to my business students. Even when doing that very logical activity I am thinking about my paintings, my projects, my ideas, my past, my present, and my future. Artists believe that there's art in everything, and that's what I see when go through my day. This is every day, seven days a week, 365 days per year. It never shuts off, and I like that. In fact I love it. It defines me.
Click above to read the full post
Painting in the moment But this doesn't answer how the artist puts in as many productive hours as the corporate worker does. Look, the corporate world would have you believe that in order to be creative one must reserve time to shut off the logical world. To some extent this is true, but there is also a very large hole in this argument. In order to "reserve time" then the opposite must be true: that if there is time to be reserved then there must also time that is not reserved. As I noted above about not being able to shut off art, this latter part of the equation is not productive to the artist. In order for the artist to be productive he or she must not have any time that is "not reserved." All time must be dedicated toward being an artist.
How does the artist work then? He or she must think, a lot, before putting these thoughts into action. The corporate worker is given tasks to do and is often measured on how many of these tasks are ticked off the list, so to speak, within a given amount of time. Corporate projects vary in length, but it really is possible to show progress in relatively short periods of time (days, weeks, quarters, for example). Most corporate workers should be able to file a progress report at the end of any given day. An artist can do the same thing, but instead of showing Excel spreadsheets or pdf documents the artist can list "thoughts" as accomplishments. The difference between the corporate worker is that the corporate worker has physical work to show on a regular basis, whereas the artist shows physical work in bulks of time - or bursts of productivity that can start after weeks of nothing but thoughts and can end as quickly as they begin. For example, I will go weeks without having a decent painting to show as proof of my labors, but then I can produce six or seven paintings in a four-week span. What happens? Four weeks or thinking immediately explodes into four weeks of paintings.
How does the artist work then? He or she must think, a lot, before putting these thoughts into action. The corporate worker is given tasks to do and is often measured on how many of these tasks are ticked off the list, so to speak, within a given amount of time. Corporate projects vary in length, but it really is possible to show progress in relatively short periods of time (days, weeks, quarters, for example). Most corporate workers should be able to file a progress report at the end of any given day. An artist can do the same thing, but instead of showing Excel spreadsheets or pdf documents the artist can list "thoughts" as accomplishments. The difference between the corporate worker is that the corporate worker has physical work to show on a regular basis, whereas the artist shows physical work in bulks of time - or bursts of productivity that can start after weeks of nothing but thoughts and can end as quickly as they begin. For example, I will go weeks without having a decent painting to show as proof of my labors, but then I can produce six or seven paintings in a four-week span. What happens? Four weeks or thinking immediately explodes into four weeks of paintings.
My next post on this subject will be about society trusting the artistic process. The corporate culture / society doesn't trust the artistic or creative approach to productivity, and it's my belief that's why we have the starving artist culture - not because suffering creates great art, but that weeks of thinking isn't trusted as much as weeks of produced documents.
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