Writing | Music | Art

I was never dissuaded from my desire to go to art school. No one told me I was insane, I have no memory of hearing “You’ll never get a job as an ARTIST, what are you, crazy?” — though I do seem to remember a vague wish-fullness that I’d pursue languages, something I had a natural facility with. I happily graduated with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts (Drawing and Painting), my family seemed pleased, my future felt promising.  It turned out that being “creative” was an asset in the economy I plunged into upon moving to Seattle, as was my skill with words.  I remain weirdly employable, albeit in occupations that will disappear with the apocalypse, nuclear winter, or or whatever dystopian event will shut down the technocracy.

I learned to write professionally — I mean for money — under the eyes of very sharp editors, men and women who bled red ink all over my documents, both on laser printed hard copies and in Word’s brutal revision marks. Much of my work would come back to me unrecognizable. At first, I found it excruciating. Sometimes I would take it too personally, I would despair that I would never be any good, I would suffer through revising, revising, revising. But then I came to appreciate whenever someone actually took the time to give me their feedback, as my work was always better for the effort. I lament the decline of the editor in today’s publishing environments. I know, first hand, what they have done for my work — refined my word order, kept me honest, questioned my sharpness, trimmed fat, made me a better writer.

As I fall deeper into music, I find so much reassurance in what I’ve learned about creative processes through other channels. I’ve been thinking about what I learned as a visual artist, and then, as a writer, and how that is helping me tremendously as I move on to new ground. Here are random thoughts and a disclaimer:  I do not always take my own advice and really, I should.

You have to spend a lot of time alone. No one can make your art for you. Sure, there’s some collaborative stuff, feedback, studio time, the kind and exacting eyes of those editors, rehearsal time in living rooms and basements. But you have to pick up your gear — your art supplies, your keyboard, whatever —  and do something with it. I’m on a writing schedule now — I have a specific project that I spend an hour a day on, more if time and inspiration allows. I pick up my uke every single day. When I was making visual art, I used to stop in my studio on the way home every evening, even if all I did was sit there and look at the mess I’d made the last time. And all that stuff, you have to do it. You can’t shop it out. No one is going to practice for you.

You need help from other people. I’ve already mentioned my love for editors. I loved, and I mean loved, my fellow students and guiding teachers in school; they taught me everything I know about creativity, color, and a bunch of nonspecific thing that are hard to explain but serve me well in my work. In music there are a handful of people who have leaned on me, not hard, but just enough so that I’m all, “Hey, quit leaning, I’ll move forward, already!” You can move in a vacuum, sure, but often that’s just moving around in a circle. If you want to move forward, it really helps to have a guide or four.

You need to work. There’s a lot of time that feels unproductive where you hammer through things that you end up throwing away. Sometimes, you’re just doing time. That stupid chord progression. That bit you keep scratching out and painting over. Paragraph after paragraph written and deleted. It can be really frustrating and sometimes, boring. There’s a ton of repetition. When I feel smart about it, I remind myself that it’s like exercise and you have to just do it until it gets easier, until you get lighter.  Though admittedly, I don’t always feel smart, sometimes I feel lazy and I want to be doing something else that’s easier.

You need a solid technical foundation. You have to know how to mix color or what grammar is for or how to get the right sound out of your instrument. You can bury that stuff in creative genius later, but you have to prepare the ground. I’ve lost count of the writers who have been angry with me because I advised them to take a basic writing class as though I was insulting them. Knowing how to type is not the same thing as knowing how to write. Not a day goes by that I don’t think, “I should learn to play the ukulele,” and I’ve been playing for years now. I’m constantly trying to make up for the fact that I have no technical platform on which to base my music. I spent five years in an arts program and still, I think, “Oh, I could take beginning drawing again.” And I learn to write all over again every damn day.

You need to love it. Art is hard. There are much easier ways to make money, easier ways to live. You’ll drive your mate crazy playing the same song over and over, wreck their sleep because you type too loud while they’re in bed, leave great smudgy streaks of color and mess on all the doorknobs because you didn’t get as cleaned up as you should have after spending the afternoon painting. You’ll ruin your finances by quitting your job over and over because you have your own work to do. (Oh, wait, that’s me.) The only payoff you can guarantee is that intangible moment when you know the art is good, and even that is transitory as all get out. You have to be in it all the way, until your hands ache and you can’t sleep and your brain is on fire. Anything less, and there’s no point. Do it for love. There is no other reason.