I think being an artist is part nature and part nurture. I had an affinity for drawing when I was young and I was nurtured by the contributions of annual Christmas gifts from my family . When I was a young preteen I was introduced to Final Fantasy 4 by a best friends’ brother on the Nintendo SNES. All I knew from that moment on was that there was a world of magic, dragons, and fantasy.
My next indulgence was in 7th grade and my parents were either sleeping or not at home. The late night anime was playing and it was an animation style I had never really seen before and quite opposite of Disney and anything else in its heyday. It was Vampire Hunter D. Beautifully animated, dark, romantic, sultry; it was everything a budding teen could want. The power of the internet and cable tv had never been introduced to my little corner of the world just yet.
When my parents separated and I went to live with my mother, this was the first time, I had cable tv. Early afternoons after school Sailor Moon would entertain me for a half hour and leave a tidbit of family wholesomeness at the end of each episode. I met my first best friend and first boyfriend on the local school bus taking me to high school. He happened to know quite a bit about Sailor Moon. He also had privy access to the worlds Ferrari of internet at that point: 56k dial-up. Could you imagine waiting 2 hours just for a website of still photos to load for content that you love? 56k was slower than watching Molasses dribble down a wall. From this point the world opened up to me through internet and shared pirated VHS anime tapes.
My friends and I would go to the local Pacific Sun at the mall or a comic shop in New London, CT. We indulged in boot leg copies of horribly scratchy and poor quality recordings but we had copies of our own. We would exchange anime, have sister like sleepovers and trade sketchbooks. Through the internet I also learned about Yoshitaka Amano who illustrated for Vampire Hunter D and the Final Fantasies I had fallen in love with. For me the world came full circle. We were pretty poor and its not like I had any other extra curricular activities competing for my attention. My friends circle was pretty nerdy. I had an an art-tribe.
The clamoring reality crashing down around me really happened my Senior year when my friends were getting their first jobs. The art guru kids in class were getting ready with their portfolios for high end art school and other art degrees. I found myself floundering. My paternal grandmother urged me to not pursue art as it would never put food on the table. —- Read that again —- give I was urged to give up the passion that kept me sane, kept me a good kid, and it was all I had. I think art can be a very viable business especially now that the internet has opened that pathway. I think with more support and direction I might have traveled this road sooner. I want you the reader to know even with with discouragement not to give up your art. I was never given an education and I hear few artists are - about how to market their art. How to become profitable.
There maybe some truth for that. You have to figure out what market or niche you are filling in your part of the world. I gave up art for a long time because the local colleges like SCAD in Savannah, Georgia and Full Sail in Orlando Florida were very expensive. The best art career one could probably get would be to be an animator at Disney. I didn’t want to do Disney. I wanted to do anime and video games. There was no market for what I wanted where I used to live. So I decided to walk the medical pathway. I went to school and got my medical assistant degree. Which didn’t help me when I moved to Seattle. So — understanding the need and opportunity in your area is important but just remember you may not stay in the same environment your whole life. I wish I had just stayed with art as an educational focus. So here is some beginning advice:
Live - Create the art you so love and share your content with the world. Start with your friends and family. Go explore and find your muse. Whatever ignites that fire to get you off your ass.
Bumble - Growth. It is a painful process. We have to be allowed to experiment. We have to be allowed to fail. We have to be able to learn where we can do better.
Dande - Our world flaunts capitalism as the end all be all. Money, Power, Glamour. We start our life with the means we are given from birth and the structure our parents have given us to jump off of. In 2019 the idea of privilege and how much further in life that can get you is being studied and talked about. It is ok to not be rich. Understand that it is OK to be OK. We all die and go to the same place and we can’t take any of this with us. We all eat , breath, sleep, poo - and repeat. Being Dande is the hardest part of this equation. It is about giving yourself permission and forgiveness.
So here’s some tips as we grow as artists:
Create a volume of work. We learn the most in the first 80 percent of the creation process. We tend to learn less when we become picky over details. The learning is in the execution. Practice, practice, practice. Completion is more important than perfection.
Be ok understanding that alot of us artists are starving or working a regular 9-5 to make our money. Use your extra time thoughtfully - do at least 1 task or 1 hour a night to develop what you love. I try to do one good sketch a week. Eventually my heart tells me to create a larger more in depth piece. Or I watch 1 YouTube video on a topic I want to learn about. They say if you accumulate 10,000 hours to something you become the equivalent of an expert. Start now and build at a reasonable pace. This is a marathon padiwan, Not a sprint.
“I don’t have the spoons”. If we have 10 spoons of energy and we give 4 to work, 3 to family, 1 to the dog, and keep 2 for ourselves.. It is ok to try again the next day and understand we need to rearrange our energy to focus more on our art and ourselves. This life is demanding and tiring. If you miss the mark one day don’t feel guilty and defeated. Sometimes it takes me a week to say hey I’m going to do something. Stay with it.
So here I begin journey to follow my own advice.
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