Brief Notes about Making Art, and a Digression

In the form of visual memes. Then a digression.



Catharsis in the arts is underrated. Why do people play the blues, or punk rock, or industrial rock? Because it's cathartic. I've played in bands in all those genres, and more, and rehearsals and gigs were almost always cathartic. I was reminded about catharsis a few days ago, when a lot of bottled up emotion around the Christmas holiday season suddenly came spilling out, triggered by a moment of aesthetic beauty. I remembered that I hadn't been making art for the past few days, and had been tied up in knots with the stresses of the winter holiday season. And then I remembered about catharsis, and was forcefully reminded about how making art keeps me grounded, centered, focused, and literally alive. Catharsis is more than just a pressure-release valve, it's a change of being, even if only for a moment. Art gives catharsis to the audience as well as the artist. The aesthetic moment that triggered all this was a sequence in a favorite movie that always, always gets to me on a very deep level, triggers an emotional response, and leaves washed clean afterwards, the way a good weep does.

Too many new age and neo-pagan artists are so focused on the light, on growth and healing and reminders to "keep it positive," that they forget that Shiva is both Creator and Destroyer. Parvati must be given her due, but so must Kali.

Sometimes you just have to get the darkness out of you by putting it into your art. The Wrathful Deities must have their due.



Art needs to be discursive, digressive, and distracted. All the best art takes you away somewhere, creates a new reality for you to wade around in, be immersed in. Art is nonlinear and even irrational. And that is its strength, and as it should be. Because that is what imagination is. Imagination is anarchic, not rational. Making art must be a journey for the artist as well as the audience, a free exploration of undiscovered and unfamiliar trails.



Life is messy, so is art.

Making art requires improvisation and intuition and inspiration, and not being in control, and not knowing what you're doing, or where you're being led.

Life is an improvisation, a guessing game at times. So is making art. Fingerpainting as well as technical pens. Disorder and chaos as another condition of orderliness. Dionysus and Apollo both.

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And a digression:

Why do I share some of my art online? I think of it as advertising. Marketing for my arts business, as well as for fun. And I usually share only bits and pieces, and not the actual piece at full size. For that, or a print, people need to visit my online store.

Why don't we respect our artists? Because we have been convinced that art is a hobby, or that we don't need it to survive. Wrong on both counts, of course, but what do you expect from a culture that avoids self-reflection as much as possible, in favor of the loud and brassy self-display of narcissism and mannerism and self-absorption? When was the last time you shared something on your Facebook wall that was for the sake of others, and not basically a form of self-advertising? If you can honestly say, yesterday, then gods bless you.

So why do artists self-advertise online? Finding their audience. Your niche audience can be anywhere in the world, now, and at last you can connect with them. Calling that narcissism seems like a category error, though, because it's about the art, not about you. Note the subtle difference.



Every week I get requests from strangers to use my art for their website for free. These days I mostly say No. Folks, I am trying to make a living from my art.

Can I stop someone from stealing and using an image of mine online? No, but I can remind them that I probably worked as hard to make that piece of art they just "borrowed" as they did to earn their weekly paycheck. Maybe harder, because there's no downtime in art-making, and you never take a vacation. So I can't stop the thieves, but I also won't let them make me paranoid, and I'll continue to share some of my art, to find my audience, to make connections, and to let people know the art is there. Our culture pays lawyers hundreds of dollars an hour, and artists nothing, that's where our priorities really lie, and actions always speak louder than words.

But you can only buy my art from me.

If you like what any given artist creates, support them by buying their art, rather than stealing it or "borrowing" it. I got one of those freebie requests in my email today. I'm thinking about how to respond. I'm thinking out loud.

Getting Back Into Book Design

I'm thinking about getting back into book design work, to offer my services to those authors who have decided to self-publish and self-promote. I think I can provide a useful service that many authors would find supportive, and I am someone who understands their needs because I too am a writer. It is sometimes easier to deal with someone who already shares your interests and concerns. I would be a niche designer offering services to a niche writers' market.


Pleasures of Books

Writers Beware has written about questionable submission guidelines to watch out for. That article prompted me to think that, while it is necessary to be cautious when submitting to journals and publishers you know nothing about, it's perhaps overly easy to become paranoid about such things. It can make one cynical and reclusive, if burned one too many times. While hurt feelings are understandable, they don't really serve you if they linger on too long.

Certainly as a graphic designer I've been screwed by clients. Who hasn't? It happens to even the most highly-regarded and famous. Everyone occasionally encounters a client from hell. There is always a client who decides they won't pay: not because they can't, but for mostly selfish and illogical reasons. Architects run into this as well, as do interior decorators. I've had one or two clients over the years who seemed honest, yet who turned out to be trolls when it came to billing. They count on the fact that they will get away with it because they can afford better litigation than you.

And what artist and designer hasn't had requests from potential clients to use their work, the fruit of their labors, for free? Some requests are phrased as though the asker were doing me a huge favor by asking to use my work for free. The usual argument is that it's more public exposure for one's work, but that's specious: I don't need more "exposure" for my work, I need clients who want to pay me for my creativity. I may not be the best in the business at self-marketing, but neither is this my first rodeo. Most offers of "exposure" assume that one is a rank beginner, just setting out on a career, and that the offered "exposure" will benefit one's career. In fact, most moments of artistic "exposure" will never be seen by anyone who cares to follow through and hire me. The reason they're asking me to use my art for free is that they themselves have no budget. Therefore they are not likely to have a budget for marketing and promotion, either.

I very occasionally say "yes" to requests to use my art for free, for my own reasons—mostly because I take a liking to the person who is asking—but never when the request is expressed in a tone of superiority, as though I should be honored merely to be asked. I am not masochistic in any way, and even the most politely-phrased demands to abuse my good nature and my creative work will be ignored. In fact, my self-esteem as an artist and designer is just fine, thank you. I have no need to have my vanity flattered, nor do I crave attention to the extent that I need grovel for it.

At this time, I don't take projects on for free, on speculation; I require the client to put some earnest money down in order to engage my services. Not much. It's merely a token of honest intent. The amount, usually a percentage of a bid, is flexible and negotiable; but experience has taught that the act of exchanging money makes clients take you and your work more seriously. If they balk at providing earnest token, well, there are plenty of other designers out there they can turn to. You can consider it an initial sorting process. Serious clients only need apply. Dealing with deadbeat clients is not worth my time, so not even starting with them is usually better for me. If you're really serious about wanting my particular work, style, talents, and view, then you'll agree that you won't find that anywhere else. Therefore, the amount of earnest token is negotiable, but the fact of it is not.

Keep in mind: deadbeat and problem clients are a small minority; don't get paranoid, and don't fall into the trap of thinking like a victim all the time. Most clients are honest people who want to be reasonable and fair. You learn to spot the potential problem clients by their behavior and questions early in the process. After that, it's your choice if you want the project is interesting enough to you that you might decide to go ahead anyway. Or not.

These kinds of difficulties happen partly because non-creatives frequently don't understand or value the work that creatives do, out of ignorance as much as malice. How many times have I heard in an art gallery some person remark when looking at a piece of Modern art, "Heck, my child could have done that!" Well, the fact of the matter is, sir, your child didn't. And no, they probably couldn't. Whether or not they could is in fact irrelevant. But this example exemplifies how poorly non-creatives understand the work that goes into making art. At its best this is merely ignorance. At its worst it is willful ignorance, dismissive of the time and effort required.


(A couple of coffee-table special-interest books I designed.)

But partly my desire to get back into book design is rooted in aesthetic self-preservation: there is just so much bad design out there, and so many writers who are taken advantage of, that it seems reasonable to want to do something the situation. Bad designs always outnumber good designs, so whatever trickle of good and effective design I can contribute back into the world of publishing during these turbulent, difficult times seems worthwhile.

I am still recovering from major surgery, but my mind is clear enough today to start thinking about how I would need to set up another website for this, and market it to authors, starting perhaps with the POD people. I'm not capable of taking on a lot of design work at the moment, not till I heal some more, and regain more of my strength. Still it's worth cogitating upon.


Book of Leaves

Books remain for me tangible objects that I enjoy with more than just the sense of sight. There is the texture of the paper and printing, the smell of ink and binding and other materials. The weight and heft of the physical object is part of the pleasure of reading it. A substantial literary effort that feels substantial as an object can enhance the overall reading experience.

What is missing from e-readers such as the Kindle is everything except the raw words, the pure text. Everything else about reading a book is gone. That's not to say that e-readers have no merits. Portability and ease of transport are two such advantages.

Nor do I ignore the truth that many writers have absolutely no care for (or sense of) anything but the raw words, the pure text. Such writers have no visual sense, in my experience, and are "all about the words" to such extent that seems bizarre, so little do they care about anything else. Such writers will find good homes in text-only media such as e-readers. They don't really care. But not all writers are so blind to other aspects of publishing.

Several great poets come to mind as writers who did in fact care about presentation, about the experience of the book as an object, about the multi-sensory act of reading. Federico Garcia Lorca made numerous drawings and illustrations. Walt Whitman was trained as a printer, and for his first edition of Leaves of Grass he chose the paper and set all the type himself. I've done that myself, following in Walt's footsteps, by organizing every aspect of three or four of my published chapbooks, from paper choice to typography to illustrations and logos. I also think of poets such as William Everson, another printer and designer whose small press editions of contemporary poetry are exquisite art-objects beyond being just books. So there is a tradition of writers who care about the book beyond the words.

The craft of the hand-made art book is experience a contemporary renaissance, as is the small handset press and lithograph. Limited editions printed and published by small presses are becoming popular again. Poems published as hand-set broadsheets are far more common now than fifty years ago. There is no need to elegize the death of the published book, despite the turbulence occurring in the publishing world on the national level. New media as well as old are taking up the slack. Each time the death of the book is announced, more books are published art objects than ever before.



So I am thinking about getting back into book design. Perhaps it's folly, and no one will know or care. But it could be fun, and have the side benefit of keeping me connected with poets, writers, and other such creatives who might want to add a bit of visual flair, of typographic elegance, to their best, most publishable work. Consider my doors open at this time.

Starting Over

I'm at the point where I'm starting over, with career, with life, after having been derailed for a few years by a lot of other things. I spent most of yesterday designing and printing self-marketing pieces. I put together two pocket-size portfolios of recent photography, which I can actually leave with a client, along with a sell-sheet and some business cards. I cut my teeth on this kind of design many years ago, so the hardest thing about it is coming up with the ideas, and choosing between possibilities.

I have too diverse a body of work to be able to properly market it all. And one of the perverse things about design is that almost everybody says they appreciate diversity and sideways thinking and versatility, when in fact that's not true. Most clients and managers understand branding—the single logo, image, or idea that captures it all in a nutshell—but most of the don't understand that designers can be chameleons, and change as needed.

How do I market myself to people who want to understand my design career and abilities from a 30-second summation? It's impossible. I almost always have to redact myself, or my image, to suit them; because my full portfolio is so diverse and large, I can only show bits of it, a single body of work at a time. Frankly, what exhausts me about the application process is this redaction; I find it wearying to have to go back into any closets, even briefly, that I have spent so much time and effort getting out of, be they professional, spiritual, sexual, or philosophical. I'm at the point where I'm just going to present what I think is my best work, right now, if only at the moment, and detach from the outcome. No-one cares who you are, for the sake of knowing who you are; the design world is perverse in its focus on superficial branding without having an interest in what lies beneath. But I can say in return, now, that I don't care what they think of me, either. If my work doesn't match your needs, if we're going to butt heads all through the process, then working with you won't be much fun for me, anyway. I'd rather have fun, working, than be paid millions to be miserable. (Who needs millions when thousands will suffice?)

Most marketing and advertising minds get stuck in one mode, or follow one pattern, because, firstly, they don't have time to do a lot of research outside their zone, as their world is very fast-paced; and, secondly, they are driven by the need for security, which is really the need for predictability, which is driven in turn by the economic needs of the dominant consumer culture. This can really skew their priorities, and have a dampening effect on fresh thinking and creative solutions. It is a mindset that resists taking risks, and tends to repeat itself stylistically, even when risk-taking has a proven track record of success. Designers often end up playing nursemaid to the client's, and/or manager's, anxieties, rather than being actively creative. And never doubt that design is a creative profession: a creative pursuit of practical outcomes. The best designers I've known, or studied, have all been a little unusual as people. Some have been eccentric, but they've earned it. In every case, their ideas have come from surprising and fresh places.

I am not the best at selling myself. I know that. I actively resent, at times, the necessity of selling myself. My work is good work, and I believe it should stand on its own merits. If it had a famous name attached to it, some of it would win awards. But I am not a Famous Designer, or even a Famous Artist. So, even though I don't like to sell my brand, I know I have to. It takes effort I'd rather expend elsewhere, which is why I can come to resent the process. I genuinely believe that the quality of the work should sell itself; I genuinely believe that ego has to be set aside in the service of good design. You can pay a great designer well, but they do risk losing their way if they start to get an inflated ego about their work.

I have been reading a marvelous business-story anti-business book, these past few days, which tells the tale of a business that never should have succeeded, and wasn't meant to, but in fact has succeeded on a grand scale. It's an exceptional case, but it has lessons for my own growing DVD business, Liquid Crystal Gallery, for thinking outside the usual paradigms, and for starting my career up again. It's a funny book, too, not a Serious Management Book. I highly recommend this book as an antidote for the usual inside-the-box thinking about business. The book I am referring to is: Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good: The madcap business adventure by the truly oddest couple, by Paul Newman and A.E. Hotchner. The book tells the story of the Newman's Own food product business; which by the way is a food product line I support weekly. My own dietary and medical requirements have pushed me to eat organic and gluten-free, and Newman's Own has been a big help. Plus, it's just damn good-tasting foodstuff.

I keep this book not on my design shelves, where I keep a few other business books in among the design and typography reference books. I keep it in the kitchen, on the cookbook shelves, next to its companion volume: Newman's Own Cookbook (compiled by Ursula Hotchner and Nell Newman, with A.E. Hotchner contributing some history notes). The two books sit there and cheer me up every time I look at them. (I've also given away a few copies of the Cookbook.)

Here are some of the big lessons one can learn from Newman's Own, and which I find applicable to my own starting-over situation, now and probably for a long time:

Newman's Own started with a creative product that they wanted to share, rather than with an attempt to go out and make money. Quality really does matter. They never compromised the quality of their product, they found ways to accommodate it.

They filled a hole in the market, and over time they transformed their market, and created a new philosophy for business. They asked a lot of questions of people they knew. They made a few mistakes, but almost all of those were ones wherein they took somebody's idea about the way things are supposed to be done, rather than trusting their own gut instincts; and they recovered from those mistakes, quickly, by again trusting their guts. If this isn't a vote for trusting your intuition in life, what is?

One thing that I am taking very much to heart from the Newman's Own experience, for myself, is that traditional and time-honored strategies for production and marketing of your product may in fact by totally wrong for your product. All the successful business gurus may have no good advice for you, because their advice matches a paradigm very different from yours.

There are, for example, other ways to publicize a product than expensive advertising. Be creative, use networking, make friends everywhere, be engaged rather than aloof. Your love and belief in your product matters. Your love of the process of getting the product out there matters. (I struggle with this aspect more than any other, as I've mentioned.) If you build it, they will come.

The quality of the product matters more than the name on the label. This is why Newman's Own succeeded while Frank Sinatra's attempt to compete with his own spaghetti sauce failed utterly. This is why a relative unknown can succeed, because the product is good, and they care about it. This gives me hope.

So, here's my attitude:

I will continue to market myself as a designer, illustrator, typographer, graphic artist, etc., because I have years of experience in those fields, and they're not hard to drop back into. If I get the occasional design or graphics gig, terrific. If people wonder what the hell I'm doing in small-town Wisconsin rather than the Big City, I have a story to tell them, about why I moved here year a few years ago, to care for my aging parents. They'll understand that I'm starting over again; or they won't. I can't control that, so I can't afford to waste time worrying about it.

I will do my best to stay with the positive attitudes about quality and caring that Newman's Own has demonstrated. I will do my best to be positive about what I have to give, rather than ambitious about what I personally want. Even though I've been burned out on live-in caregiving, and I occasionally wonder when it will ever be my turn to be cared for, I know deep down that giving back to the world is what makes the world a finer place; no matter how you give, or give back, or where, or when. I pay things forward when I can't pay them back. And I'll forgive myself for being unable to retain this attitude, on my worst days; because I know I can restore it, come better days.

I will do my best to enjoy the process of marketing myself. I have to say, spending all day yesterday on making those little portfolios, and on designing a sell-sheet, was mostly fun, and in the end I had a tangible product to put out. I will continue to do my best to enjoy the process. That is the area, as I've mentioned, that I have identified a known weakness. Knowing about it, though, means that you can compensate for it; that you can watch out for its effects, and do your best to overcome them.

So reading Shameless Exploitation has been inspiring. It's right there on my shelf in the kitchen, ready to be picked up again, whenever I need a kick in the pants.