In a recent blog post, loyal friend of RAMH Froog dredged up a name I hadn’t seen or heard for years: “cartoonist” Hugh MacLeod.*
I no longer have any idea where I first encountered MacLeod and his interesting work. At the time, though, he was struggling to forge some sort of business from his creative output while still suffocating in a day job. He’d started up an e-newsletter, and in each issue he included — free of charge — a sample of one of his special projects. That special project was the creation of drawings (“cartoons”? eeehhhh… maybe) which he’d doodled on the backs of business cards. Some of the drawings were quite dark in tone; some were laugh-out-loud funny; some just made me uncomfortable with how much they made me think.
Ultimately, I unsubscribed from the Gaping Void newsletter, as MacLeod called it. Not because it had ceased to be interesting, even valuable or important. No, simply because I was saving every single issue, with all the others, in a separate GapingVoid email folder. The computer I had at the time had begun to wheeze with overload and I started to throw things overboard: MP3s, images, software… Gaping Void.
And then I forgot all about it. Until yesterday, when I read Froog’s post, and shortly learned that MacLeod is making a living doing what he wants to do. Crazy, huh?
If you want, feel free (of course!) to explore what is now MacLeod’s Gaping Void blog. But by all means (as Froog suggested) do stop over at the Lateral Action site for a terrific brief interview with MacLeod, in part on the topic of getting your art — dare I say writing? — in front of people who will want it for themselves.
Excerpt:
“Artists cannot market” is complete crap. Warhol was GREAT at marketing. As was Picasso and countless other “Blue Chips”. Of course, they’d often take the “anti-marketing” stance as a form of marketing themselves. And their patrons lapped it up.
The way artists market themselves is by having a great story, by having a “Myth”. Telling anecdotal stories about Warhol, Pollack, Basquiat, Van Gogh is both (A) fun and (B) has a mythical dimension… if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have had movies made about them. The art feeds the myth. The myth feeds the art.
The worst thing an artist can do is see marketing as “The Other”, i.e. something outside of themselves. It’s not.
So: what’s your myth — your “great story” about your story?
_______________________
* The “cartoonist” is MacLeod’s preferred term, rather than “artist.”
I think I’m having trouble breathing. Argh. Well, first, glad I could get here. Damn 403 message.
Second, this is killing me. Loved MacLeod’s work. And he proves that after all this time, I still don’t know what I’m doing.
My myth? My myth!? I’m getting a headache.
Everything is possible whenever we put our minds to it. All things are created twice, first in the thought then in reality. Many are stuck in the first because they are afraid to make an effort in reality. :-)
Okay. I left a comment last night. I see it isn’t here.
Let’s just say that I’m thinking about what MacLeod has to say… and freaking out a little.
marta: Either there’s some technical problem preventing you from seeing your comment at 12:40 am, or you really are freaking out.
I was a little apprehensive about that word “myth,” because of its epic implications. But I can see what he’s driving at, if you look at the example he gives. He says that talking about giants — Picasso, Van Gogh, whoever — is myth-talk by artists as a means of boosting their own art. It’s a convenient fairy tale to share with outsiders about (in this case) the difficulties of being an artist, the tortures of the artistic soul in a commercial world, and so on. And as MacLeod also says, Picasso et al. spread this sort of fairy tale themselves, for the same reason.
Assume you’re not talking to another writer or artist about your work. Assume you’re talking to a potential client, or agent, or gallery owner, or critic, or…
With me so far?
Okay, now think of what you can say about your work which will help that “outsider” value it. If you talk only about what a blast it is to create, how satisfying it is — no matter how true that might be — it’s not as “interesting” (i.e. value-making) as if you talk instead about the difficulties. “I wrote a thousand words this morning. This afternoon, I threw away nine hundred.” Like that.
So what MacLeod seems to be saying is that you construct a story line around the making of your art and/or writing. It can be true, or it can be “true,” or maybe even not very true at all but darned plausible.
And there’s your marketing framework.
(You may have an easier time than many with this, because you’re naturally inclined to doubt, register anxiety, obsess, and so on. :))
Welcome, Walter — thanks for the contribution!
I think you are right about the two creations, with a caveat:
The creation of something (painting, story, whatever) has the two steps which you mention. Many people who come up with a concept chicken out, or fail after a half-hearted attempt, without actually applying the craft required to bring it to reality.
But then, once created, the “thing” is just stuck there with its creator for company. This may or may not be enough for the artist. If it’s not, if a wider audience is the goal, then the artist has to undertake a second “creation”: marketing it. I think that’s where a lot of artists/writers (including myself) can’t quite make the leap; they think, “Wait a minute — I didn’t sign on for this sort of ‘creation’!”
Okay. Really. I left a comment. Then I came back and there were no comments. I checked again. My comment wasn’t there. So I left another comment.
And now they are both there. I think it is tied to the forbidden thing.
marta: It turns out, you’re right — a by-product of the 403-Forbidden error(s) which kept people away from the home page last night. I didn’t realize it myself until after I posted that smart*ss comment (above, at 9:27). I didn’t see it posted right away, so I tried to post it again and got a “You’ve already said that!” error message.
Long story short: To fix the 403s, I had to install a WordPress plug-in last night. But one of the settings in the plug-in prevented comment authors from seeing their own comments — I just had to uncheck that.
His interview is direct – I like that. However here are some of my off-the-bat thoughts a minute later.
So he is not an artist? Only history will make him one? I cant remember where I heard that before (a few dozen times?) Ok, I could buy it Mr MacL, only don’t then refer to your work as “art” throughout the rest of the conversation.
I agree about ““Talent, Stamina and Discipline” Within the tough commercial world he describes I suggest the emphasis falls on the latter two. This would account for well known artists being good marketers, Yes, Picasso and Warhol are marketing legend. But were they the only voice out there? Are they the only voice we want to hear?
People who work in the art industry – curators, publishers, gallerists, collectors can’t be naive. BUT they can apply integrity. (of course as with all decisions, the pressure of the human condition and of the price of bread there may only be a small percentage who sustain that.)
Ok, (as a female artist) I like a good ‘story’ as much as the next “guy”
(1. The Artist (Stereotypical, Heroic, Absinthe-Soaked, Crazy Guy). 2. The Patron (Beastly, Bourgeois Rich Guy)
But only if I can’t see/ignore the “hooks”, smell the cliches or stumble on the ‘waste of time of it’.
Seems to me that Mr MacL is all about punchy answers. This is a good skill for a cartoonist. It is, one could argue, the their stock in trade.
(reading this back, my comments sound tough, I don’t feel that – its just clumbsiness on my part. Your question John about a ‘story’ is a generous question and a good one (as it your way) but not one I would think of as of the same tone or intention as Mr MacL judging only from his interview. I haven’t got to his blog yet)
fg: Funny you should mention the, um, linguistic problem — his being a non-artist who nonetheless produces art. When I wrote the post I kept tripping over that problem, and tried (I think succeeded) not to use the word “art” — leading to at least one ghastly substitute, “creative output.” This is known as overthinking a problem.
I like the relative weights you place on talent, stamina, and discipline, and under which circumstances. I wonder if it might vary — even for a given artist — from one sort of work to another. If it’s ungainly in size/weight, does the artist need to bring less talent to the creation step, and afterwards (say) more stamina — because it will be more difficult to sell?
Sometimes I wonder about performance artists, and creators of installations which can effectively be built and exhibited only once. I hope any of them who might read this won’t read a value judgment into it, but I wonder if the talent-stamina-discipline weights might be distributed differently for them.
The punchy answers you mention: he’s sort of flippant, and sort of… hmm… charmingly gruff in the interview. Which probably says more about the “story”/”myth” he’s developed than it does about the (yes) art — as you suggest, almost stock in trade for a cartoonist. When I visited his blog, though, I seemed to notice he was less concerned about being clever and charming than he was about developing ideas. On the other hand, even when he’s thinking out loud, he’s still actively packaging his thoughts.
I think the whole thing about choosing a story is really just a matter of choosing to talk about certain details (and responses to them) rather than others. Thinking back to Michelangelo lying on his back on the scaffold under the chapel ceiling: He doesn’t strike me as the carousing sort, but I picture him tossing back a few with the boys down at the taverna (or whatever the word is), at the end of a hard day’s work. One guy says, Hey, Mike — you’re spending a hell of a lot of time in church these days. Thought you might be working but when I stopped by today you were lying down on a board up by the ceiling! Then he guffaws, winks, and nudges a bystander in the ribs.
To which Michelangelo says, Very funny, smart guy. But it’s no picnic, I want to tell you. You ever tried to hold a paintbrush vertically for eight hours a day? While painting — Jee-zus! — while painting the damn index finger of GOD?!? He shakes his head, and flexes the fingers of his hands, wincing a little for effect.
He doesn’t mention, of course, the huge rush of satisfaction. He doesn’t laugh and clap, remembering the jubilant moment when he realized he’d gotten God’s and Adam’s index fingertips just the right distance apart.
(A good thing, too. Centuries later, it would have made for a very confused performance by Charlton Heston.)
[I took the liberty of making the corrections to your first comment which you mentioned in your second, and then deleting the
laterlatter. :)]I don’t think there’s anything necessarily incompatible or disingenuous about disowning the term ‘artist’, but wanting to think of your output as ‘art’.
There’s something altogether more precious – and more obtrusive, more wheedling – about the use of the term ‘artist’. I think it is possible to describe your work as ‘art’ without necessarily implying/demanding that the rest of the world must see it that way; but people who label themselves as ‘artists’ are usually trying to convince others – and themselves – that everything they produce must therefore be acknowledged as art.
That seems to me to be getting the whole thing backwards. If enough people, now and in the future, accept your self-definition of your work as ‘art’, then it can be generally recognised as such and you earn the title of ‘artist’ – it is an accolade that should only really be conferred by broad consensus over time, not your own self-assertion here and now.
I don’t think any of the artists I’ve ever met or read about who really impressed me typically referred to themselves as ‘artists’ – because they realised it sounded poncey, conceited, perhaps even overcompensating for insecurity. They almost always just say “I paint”, “I make photographs”, “I do installations”, “I write”.
Great ReCaptcha (a rare triple word combo): Wolf turnover collar
Froog: Your comment had mysteriously been caught in the lint trap of RAMH‘s new(ish) spam filter. Bizarre.
I think MacLeod’s issue with “artist” isn’t the term per se; it’s self-identification as an artist. Writers get nervous calling themselves writers — or, worse, authors — for the same reason. It feels pretentious. It feels icky even to say “I aspire to become an artist/a writer.”
At the root of the whole problem may be the elevation of art, writing, etc. to the level of the supernatural. Mere humans can’t do art, goes the thinking. Art has to be done by special humans, who undergo special forms of suffering and anxiety unknown to us groundlings. That may be true (although I’d argue that statisticians, auto mechanics, bakers, undertakers, university professors, and so on all have their own professional hells that I’d want no part of). In any case, it certainly makes it easier to explain why an artist’s creations often seem so extraordinary, twisted, or what-have-you: This isn’t something a normal human does. I’m not normal.
So MacLeod got caught in a language trap: he doesn’t want to call himself an artist — to the point of denying he is one — but hasn’t made the additional leap: to deny that what he produces is in the category of art. Not so much disingenuous; more like having cake and eating it.
(Your summary paragraph, btw, offers a real-world illustration of why verbs generally work better than nouns.)
Good point, JES – verbs are more direct, carry less conceited baggage with them. With the professions it might have become an inviolable convention to use the actor-noun; but things like being an artist aren’t in quite the same category, and describing yourself as such isn’t easily accepted as such a norm. People gain authoritative confirmation of their status as lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc., and have certificates on the wall to prove it. When you say you’re ‘an artist’, we only have your word for it.
I wonder what the hell of statisticians might be? I think there’s a story in that…
“Not so much disingenuous; more like having cake and eating it.” I agree and it is as you say “a language trap”. Re my earlier comment, I am not especially bothered about what Mr MacL calls himself only that he, doth protest too much.
Froog has moved the comments on to breaking down the definition. What is artist/writer? A grand, useful and often tedious task. I suppose definition of terms are the beginning and the end of most debate – hours of too’ing and fro’ing should everyone at the coffee table (or in court) be in the mood. In our early twenties I had a couple of friends who worked at the Oxford English Dictionary. A compelling, fascinating and maddening job.
There are a dozen or more ways to define yourself as a artist/writer. As you ask JES, “what is you’re story.” (I guess that part of your story is that the definition may change.) Then there are a dozen or more ways that each of your readers/collectors/audience might define you – every one of them. And then there are critics who will (if you are lucky or famous) try to define you and thus try to put everyone else right.
Phew, I can see why Warhol and Picasso were interested in trying to take control.
I remember myself and my boyfriend at art school having this discussion age 19 or so. Then ‘artist’ felt like a burden. But soon the word felt like a useful term leaving me the time to get on with my work…. (as an idea monger, printer, photographer, performer, presenter, coffee drinker, drafts person, sculptor, publisher, etc)
Both of you know something of my work as an artist so let me ask you (protestations aside) are you JES, are you Froog, ‘a writer’? What about you Walter? Marta?
PS Having now looked at his blog, I would call Mr MacL a cartoonist. In my opinion he is working with ideas and cartoons.
PPS As definitions go this one for ‘Satire’ makes fine reading, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire
roadwork emigration
Froog: The hell of statisticians is probably a landscape littered with experiences with a correlation coefficient of… of zero, I guess?
fg: You probably know the game we call “the dictionary game,” right? Somebody opens a dictionary and randomly selects an odd word; everyone, including the one with the dictionary, has to write down a dictionary-sounding definition. All the definitions are jumbled together in a pile and read aloud, and everyone guesses which is the “correct” one according to the authority.
Your comment suggests we could have a lot of fun (?) playing the same game with words not necessarily uncommon, but prone to inciting argument. Like “artist.”
Well of course I write but I wouldn’t presume to call myself a writer; that’s for posterity to decide.
KIDDING.
It does ramp up the queasiness to assert things like “I’m a novelist,” even though I’ve published a novel, or even “I’m an author,” even though my name appears on the cover of a half-dozen books. But “writer” I’m comfortable with. (Except during times when I’ve not been attending to my writing. Then it feels a bit bogus.)
Ah, the reCaptcha: in wariness!
Ah, now I understand why artist-types are so often seen(portrayed) as smoking; it gives them a prop to use while they tell how they wrote 1000 words and deleted 900.
I’ll skip over and read the interview in a moment, but reading this blog post has made me think that I should start wearing an outlandish hat. Perhaps one with a feather. All overthetop personas should have a hat, don’t you think? lol
Eileen: Experts agree — every artiste-type human needs a prop. If not a cigarette (preferably with holder), then an outlandish hat (whether to run after it is up to you); if not an outlandish hat, then a heavily tattooed body part; if not a heavily tatooed body part, then… well, a video will do in a pinch:
I just had an interview about my work with a newspaper journo. Of course the, ‘when did you, where where you… an artist…’ questions came up. (as they do).
For some reason it reminded me:
Froog, your nickname for me since we became friends a few years back is ‘The Artist’! There is something about the ‘The’ before it which makes it extra grand but well, it’s your blog so I just roll with it.
(I now wonder if I google ‘The Artist’ I get me on your blogs! Crikey!)
@ JES, what a fantastic video! I didn’t see it before. Must have taken them ages! I dig the goggles and the paint look…
fg: Congratulations on the interview. If this keeps up, you’ll soon have to add a whole separate Web site just for showing off your clippings! (Even if the questions are repeats.)
I’m not sure who has the more difficult job in an interview with an artist or writer: the interviewer or the interviewee. The latter probably gets sick of answering the same questions over and over, and trying to make the answers sound fresh. And the former knows that about the latter, and wishes s/he could come up with better questions, but this whole creativity thing is just so damned mysterious, and so on, and so on…
# of Google hits at the moment on the phrase “the artist” (Google can’t to my knowledge distinguish capitalized from lowercase letters): 27,000,000
# of hits on that phrase just at Froog’s two sites: 87
Make of that what you will!
To no one in particular, just came across an entertaining quote: “The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you’re an artist.” It’s from (artist) David Hockney.