Category: Creative concepts

Deepish thoughts and polemics about creativity, art, abstract notions

Childish things

dannygregoryLeave a comment

Frog

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child;
but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Corinthians 13:11

I’m not a child psychologist. Nor do I have a terribly accurate or comprehensive memory of my own childhood. So I am struggling a little to get to the roots of what happens to children in adolescence that makes most of us stray from the art-making that is the hallmark of every childhood. When and why do we abandon crayons and coloring books and singing and dressing up?

My adolescence was somewhat unusual. I came to America three weeks before my 13th birthday and I didn’t fit in. I had spent the previous three years in an Israeli public school, speaking only Hebrew. Right before that I had been in an American school in Pakistan. And my elementary school was a Presbyterian boarding school in Australia.

I don’t have any distinct memory of drawing much at that age. I know I read a lot and I wrote stories. But I don’t think I’d lost the pleasure of drawing. However, a couple of years later I’m pretty sure I was thinking of myself as ‘artistic’. I had friends who were ‘artsy’ too; my school didn’t have a distinct jock set but those of us who were interested in art were a clique of a sort, albeit with blurred edges. By sixteen, I’d begun to act in school productions, to write and draw for the school paper and by seventeen, I was selling buttons I made out of little drawings and was then asked to teach a class on ‘Portable Art’ for other students. So by junior year, my self-image was certainly associated with, if not 100% tied to, making things and being creative.

I think what was going on in those years had a lot more to do with other people than with my own sense of myself. When I was a kid, I just made things, drew things, painted things, sang in the bath, made story books, but all for me. It was just stuff I did, like playing. I would no more have thought of myself as an artist than I thought of myself as a Lego engineer or a cowboy. If anything, I wanted to be a veterinarian.

I was pretty clueless in my strange new surroundings; I had no cultural history and was pretty insecure and awkward and shy (not to mention ashamed of the unwelcome hairs and pimples that seemed to be sprouting all over me). So being ‘artistic’ was a way of providing a label for myself –it beat the label of ‘fag’ that my nemesis Tim O’Brien gave me in 8th grade and ‘wimp’ (9th grade) and ‘nerd’ (10th grade). In 11th grade, in a production of Tad Mosel’s Impromptu, I got to kiss the prettiest girl in the senior class in front of the entire student body. Tim O’Brien was the ticket-taker.

So for me, this self-definition was a good thing. I drew and painted and acted more and more in order to solidify this image. (For my best friend, Julian, who was 6’3″ and captain of the basketball team, my image and my cynical, anti-authoritarian presence was a liability; the coach was constantly telling him to stay away from me and concentrate on his jump shot. Ironically, Julian’s mother is a successful artist.) While being a good student wasn’t exactly disparaged, it didn’t give one much social cachet. However, making buttons and painting on my shoes and donating huge canvases of feet to the library and doing snarky cartoons for the school paper was a way of being someone.

Senior year, things seem to have changed. Our school, being progressive and Quaker, didn’t give grades (this was in the late 1970’s) and so applying to college became an anxious affair. We had to do well on the SATs, as they were the main concrete bit of evaluation one had to go on. I. for some reason, became determined to go to Princeton, though I applied to other schools. Somehow under this whole academically intense period of scrutiny, I reinvented my notion of myself as a serious person, a writer, a scholar. Sure, I had diverse interests, but I dismissed all that painting and acting as folderol. I was going to be a typical creature of the 1980s –not quite willing to be an investment banker, perhaps but aware that conformity and Donald Trumpery were the hallmarks of the day. Within a year or two of college, I had more or less stopped painting and drawing and was majoring in Political Science.

I don’t know if my story is typical. However, there is no doubt that adolescence is a time of self-consciousness and identity molding. Added to that pressure is pour society’s deification of wealth and the sense that art = penury.

I worry about my boy –eleven and so in love with drawing and filmmaking and acting and singing and fantasy –will he be twisted away from these loves and become stifled and embarrassed by Art? Will he choose some identity that forbids an acknowledgment of the need we all have to make things? I hope not. And I think, having the sort of family he has, that this is less likely than for most.

But I get a lot of mail from people who have lost their long-ago urge to be creative and who feel very afraid and anxious and unsure about picking up the pieces again. Is there some sort of crossroads we all come to? And what can we do to make sure that we don’t suffer some irrevocable break with our creative selves. I believe very strongly that Art can be spelled with a small ‘a’, that one doesn’t need to be a professional, celebrated, wealthy creative person to be creative at all. I believe that creativity is like exercise or cooking, something that can and should be just a part of everyday life or everybody. Without it, we suffer individually and collectively. It took me two decades to regain my love of making things for its own sake and I mourn those lost years, the painting and photos and films and drawings and sculptures I might have made but didn’t. Now all I can do is make up for that lost time and vow not to lose my way again.

I will admit that my self-image is still tied up with making art. I am part of a community of creative people now – the readers of this blog and my books, my many new friends who make art – and that this community is part of what keeps me going … to an extent. I am working hard to loosen the grip of the ego and I am making progress. Honestly, even if I dwelt in complete obscurity and my internet connection was severed, I would draw just as much for that pure feeling that floods my skull when I concentrate and let the ink flow.

How about you?

Drawing Fire

dannygregoryLeave a comment

cupandsaucer.jpg
I wrote about Steve Mumford last year when his work was only available on Artnet. Now he has published a sumptuous book collecting all of the watercolors and observations he made during his visits to war-torn Iraq.
He told me that he drew almost exclusively with a dip pen while there and that he carried his art supplies in the pockets of his flak jacket, ready to sweep everything together and haul ass if there was any sort of trouble. Some of his paintings are of bombs blowing up under humvees or soldiers returning sniper fire and those sorts of pictures he admitted he had done from photos he took on the scene and then painted back at his hotel or even in his studio safely in New York.
He said that drawing gave him a sort of access he could never have gotten as a journalist. Many photographers were embedded with troops but the Iraqis were often suspicious when they saw a camera. Women in particular did not like to have their pictures taken and retreated behind their veils.
But when Steve sat down to draw, he was trusted. People could see what he was doing, and knew how they were being depicted. And they had the universal interest most people have to watching a work of art come to life, seeing how the lines emerge and take shape. Iraqis have a rich artistic tradition and enormous respect for artists. Steve was able to sit in meetings between the soldiers and the Iraqis, to capture everyday life as it was led in the streets of Baghdad, because people welcomed him.
Steve says he is a shy person and yet he drew crowds whenever he set up his little folding stool and began to draw. Imagine what it’s like to sit on the sidewalk in a war-zone and sketch. Imagine being under the scrutiny of people who could be suicide bombers. Imagine being in tense situations like negotiations with local mullahs or driving down dusty roads in a US military convoy. I’m amazed he could relax enough to do such wonderful work.
Most people are enormously self-conscious the first time they draw in public. There is something very presumptuous in setting yourself up in public as ‘an artist’. You are sure people are watching your every move (which they may well be doing) and then dismissing your feeble efforts and snickering behind your back at your ineptitude. All of these paranoid thoughts swirl in your mind as you draw, little yammering voices nipping at your pen, distracting you, judging every stroke you make.
Of course, like so many excuses we give ourselves for not taking risks or trying new things, your fears are hogwash. The only reactions people have when they see an artist at work is fascination, respect, and envy. Most people will watch from a distance but some will stand right near you. When I draw in Chinatown, the locals come right up and virtually lean on me as I draw; often the same people will stay glued to my side for a half an hour as I work. Occasionally people will gently ask a question about what I’m drawing or why I’m drawing it. If I wear headphones, they probably won’t. I can stop and engage them and reap some quick admiration, or just carry on with my work. On extremely rare occasions, something a little more dramatic might happen. In Jerusalem, some boys try to rip my sketchbook out of my hands and run off with it. Every so often someone has realized I was drawing them and felt violated and insisted I stop (of course, I always do; I wouldn’t make a good drawarazzi).
I urge you to get out with your journal and capture life in the streets. If you are unbearably nervous, sit with your back against a wall or draw the view through a caf� window. I think it’s nice to share your work with the people you are drawing � though I don�t do it often enough. Last week, my pal Tom drew a fire station; the firemen saw him and loved the piece so much they gave him a t-shirt and asked to make a copy; they said they want to make it into a poster. I had a similar experience at a brothel in Nevada that Dan Price and I drew (long story, another time).
If you ever get horribly anxious as you ply your pen and pad out in public, think of Steve Mumford in his flak jacket surrounded by unfamiliar faces and the smell of smoke, and suck it up.

Clarification

dannygregory1 Comment

rome-25.jpg
I’ve been following a discussion on the Everyday Matters group and it has gotten my wheels turning. The talk has been about the utility of specific drawing assignments suggested by others, whether there’s really utility or purpose to everyone deciding to draw a piece of fruit one week, a pair of shoes the next, and then sharing their work and discussing it. While some people love it and have made it the main business of the group, others have complained that it has diverted the purpose of the group and distracted it from its original intention.
I’m not interested in taking sides because I think any sort of drawing is a good thing. However, I’d like to clarify what I’m up to with my drawing. While I have done some nice drawings here in Rome, I’m not interested in being a travel writer or an illustrator or a fine artist.
I want to live my life to its fullest and I find that drawing what I encounter deepens my appreciation. While I share my work with others, I make it for me. When I have unusual and interesting experiences like I’m having in Rome right now, my drawings seem to have a wider interest. But my core philosophy is that every day matters. Every single day. The day you meet the president. The day you have a baby. The day you find a special on sirloin at the supermarket. The day you get your shoes back from the cobbler. I find that drawing helps me to commemorate those events, large and small, dull and transformative. For me, that’s the point of art. To deepen my understanding of my life.
If someone else’s suggestion that I draw a particular thing opens my eye to fruit or glasses or the pattern of sunshine on my counterpane, then that’s great. But ultimately, we all live different lives and are handed assignments by each dawning day. Each day we’re handed a new set of challenges, new rivers to ford, new choices and wonders and pains and lessons. If we think the day is full and familiar, we need just dig deeper into it, look for fresh insight, peel back the layers of the onion. I find that drawing helps me do that.
Art lessons familiarize one with the tools but they are not a substitute for digging one’s own ditches, constructing one’s own nest. They are just abstractions and life is very concrete. I enjoy what I learn in life-drawing classes, but learn far more by drawing my wife’s sleeping body, my reflection in the bedroom mirror.
To draw, one must draw. Exercises and academic and books provide examples of what one might do, but experience is the real teacher. Take tomorrow as your assignment. Draw your breakfast, your bus stop, your bathroom wall while you’re shitting, your laundry as you fold it, your children as they watch TV, your pillow as you wait for lights out.
Be bold with your exploration. Capture what you do and have always done. Then push yourself to new experiences if only to draw them. Visit new neighborhoods and draw them. Meet new people and draw them. Try new foods, read new books, smell new flowers, do anything that will deepen your understanding and your appreciation of your world and your place in it.
I don’t care if you think your drawings suck, if you are ashamed to show them to anyone else. What matters is that you pause and contemplate. If your record of that contemplation is inaccurate, try again. Feel deeper. See deeper. Slow down. Relax. And tomorrow, do it again. You aren’t being graded or evaluated on your drawing. No more than you are being evaluated on your life itself. The only thing that matters is you. What you experience. How you experience it. How much you get out of this day and the next. This is your life. Dig into it. Embrace it. Notice its curves and angles. Explore its corners. Feels its edges and put them down on paper. The pen, the page, are just tools for you to take time and slow it down. I can’t make you do it my way, any more than I can force you to live your life my way. You decide, you forge your style, you pick the line that draws your life.
Take tomorrow and instead of hesitating and questioning and doubting and fretting, draw your breakfast, draw your day. Then try it again the day after. With each successive day, you’ll be clearer and deeper. If you miss a day, don’t freak out or beat yourself up. Just take on the day after that.
Share the results if you’d like. By sharing you will find commonality and support. But maybe you don’t need more than self sufficiency. In that case, keep your drawings for yourself. Or toss them out as you do them. The drawings don’t matter, the drawing does.

Avuncular advice

dannygregoryLeave a comment

princeton-man-1hey danny just a (not so quick) question for ya
we’re in the middle of this whole looking for colleges and setting up visits thing and it is absolutely overwhelming. i was told by an admissions dean to find someone who is in the field i want to go into(Art/Art Ed/Art therapy[still deciding..heh]) and come up with a list of questions i can ask to these places i visit to find the school with the best program.not just a good art program but good in integrating art and teaching art. the two art teachers i have are at two oppsite ends of the spectrum. one is a photo teacher that doesnt believe in going to school for art education but just going to some artschool for art, doing what you want all through college, bettering yourself and afterwards consider teaching (after youve spend thousands of dollars on an education already). the other teacher is one of the nicest people i know who is so busy with just being a teacher, having a family, and driving an SUV that she doesnt draw anymore or make things. she’s all for practicality and strictly the teaching aspect. i feel like these people aren’t very much help in that they both have their own ideas of what being an art teacher is and these ideas aren’t mine. and after all this jib jab my real question is do you know any art teachers or professors or anything of the sort that can give me an idea of how to feel these schools out for a program that im looking for? how to narrow down the options. i realize that not knowing for sure what i want to do doesnt help this situation but i know i want to make art myself. learn as much as i possibly can and do the best that I can and work with people/the public and make art mean as much to them as it does to me. if any of the above content made sense, your input would be greatly appreciated.
thanks for your time(!)
-niece in distress

Dear Morgan:

I hear you. Choosing the path you are to take in life is a daunting prospect. But, here’s the secret: you aren’t making that choice right now. It’s a long and gradual process with many twists and turns and none of the crossroads is irreversible. Don’t worry about the end result right now. Don’t think that you have to choose the school that will firmly and clearly deliver you to the door of the job you will do until you retire.

Secondly, don’t be impatient. Don’t rush to get a highly professional education right away. Don’t commit yourself to an idea of what you will do in life. When I was seventeen I couldn’t have described the life I lead today. I know you are anxious about being successful in what you do. You and you parents don’t want you to become a starving artist. Believe me, that’s extremely unlikely.

But similarly I wouldn’t want you to make up your mind today that you will be some thing specific. Your experience is simply too limited for you to make the right choice at this point. There are so many sorts of stimulating and lucrative creative jobs you could have, and most of them are careers you have not even heard of yet.

The training for most of them is similar, however. You need to learn as much as you can about as many things as you can. That should be the goal of your college education.

I have met and worked with many young people who went directly into art school and/or an advertising school. They think they know far more than they do. The fact that they have been taught some technical skills does not prepare them for a career in advertising or design. In fact, I would much rather hire a smart, worldly, inquisitive person who traveled the world, read history and sold shoes at Macy’s than a person who focused entirely on getting a career in advertising since they were seventeen. Most of the skills they think they acquired can be learned quickly on the job. But reading good literature, debating politics and philosophy, living among many different sorts of people, those are experiences that will advance you far more in a creative field. The most interesting film directors didn’t limit their educations to film school. The most interesting writers didn’t come out of the Iowa program; the most successful copywriters didn’t limit their educations to the Miami Ad School, etc.

You say you are interested in art therapy and art teaching and you may well end up in those fields. But may I suggest that the reason you are interested in those fields is because you know people who are in them. Frankly, your world is a little limited. There are many, many other options you should look into first.

Here’s a partial list of the jobs of creative people I know, stimulating and lucrative jobs you may not have considered, jobs that may actually be perfect for you: documentary producer, flash animator, magazine illustrator, greeting card designer, software engineer, toy designer, packaging engineer, medical illustrator, court room artist, commercial photographer, automotive designer, production designer, prop maker, line producer, cinematographer, magazine art director, jewelry designer, fashion stylist, typographer, costume designer, film editor, sound designer, architect, urban planner, graphic designer, food stylist, runway photographer, book editor, book jacket designer, museum curator, art historian, retail display designer, fashion director, makeup artist, choreographer, stage manager, commercial composer, industrial film editor, fragrance designer, information architect, strategic planner, potter, art buyer, continuity person, textile designer, set carpenter, industrial chemist, fashion forecaster, copywriter…

You can prepare for most of these jobs the same way.

First of all, do your best in high school. Have diverse interests so you build a good resume: School paper, school play, community stuff, etc. Sports matter far less after high school than they do in high school. Same with TV, Play Station, drugs, liquor and other extracurrics. But don’t be a goody-two shoes either. Live fast but don’t die young.

Apply to the best possible schools. Set your sights high. You are smart and articulate and you can do it. My high school had no formal grades so many of my classmates worried they couldn’t get into a good school. I didn’t know better so I applied to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, University of Chicago and had University of Michigan as my safety. I got into all of them (but Yale) but only visited the one I really wanted to attend: Princeton. I knew very little about it but I like F.Scott Fitzgerald. I also liked the fact that it had no law school, no med school and seemed committed to under graduate education. My parents were not particularly wealthy but family members kicked in some cash so I could go.

Get a very liberal education: This is the last time in life you will get to immerse yourself all day in all sorts of learning among a lot of smart people. Don’t waste it by limiting yourself or your field of interest. I studied French, Latin, History, Geology, Politics, Literature, Economics, Art History, Music, Anthropology, Psychology, and more. Only when you are absolutely forced to, choose a major. Mine was Political Science with a minor in Near Eastern Studies, I wrote my thesis about 1960s radical students. Again, none of it had anything to do with my future career, and yet it was all immensely helpful in separating me from the dull careerists in my peer group. I was and am interesting and interested. I can bring a lot more to the discussion than those who majored in graphic arts or economics. Trust me, if you could learn all the professional skills you need to in four years of college it wouldn’t be worth much in the job market. But the ability to form associations between obscure things is a very valuable skill that you can only hone by reading and experiencing as much as possible throughout your whole life. I go my first job in advertising after a couple of weeks of interviewing. It was easy and I had zero experience.

The future looks bright. There are more and more opportunities for creative people to earn a good and interesting living. In the dawn of the Information Age, technical skills mattered a lot and engineers and economists were Kings. But, frankly, billions of Indians and Chinese are taking over those jobs. What they don’t have and won’t have for the next few decades is a good grasp on culture and a sufficiently free society to encourage individuals with new and fresh ideas. That will give America a competitive advantage for most of my lifetime, if not yours. People who make things will be very valuable for a while to come. The entertainment field will keep America first: fashion, consumer culture, computer gaming, web design, marketing, music, film, etc. Think of how those fields have transformed over your short lifetime. Any hard-core specific learning you get in a second rate college in these fields will be obsolete before you graduate. But if you have a diverse and insatiable hunger for learning and a creative mind, you will always be on the cusp of the new wave.

Education never stops. Apply yourself in school but use your summers to explore other fields. Write to people and ask for internships. Spend half your summer making spending money, the other half working in a gallery, for a commercial production company or a magazine publisher (I worked at the White House, for cryin’ out loud – also newspapers, congressmen, McDonalds, record stores, etc.) Stay with relatives in big cities and immerse yourself in the metropolitan jungle. You can also wait until graduate school to go to an art program; by then you may feel more comfortable about where to specialized. Meantime, keep reading and exploring. My nightstand is piled high with history books, art criticism, books in technique, magazines, etc. I take classes, interview people with diverse careers, and keep hungry and inquisitive. I’m still not sure what I want to be when I grow up. And you don’t need to be either.

I hope this is a little helpful. But let’s discuss it more. Call me anytime and I’ll help you however I can
Meantime, don’t worry and be happy,
Your uncle,
Danny

Feeling a little La-la

dannygregoryLeave a comment

santa-monica-cacti

I have been holding on to my jet lag quite well while here in LA; getting up early and going to sleep most nights before ten. Still my internal clock has slowly drifted west a little more each day; I’m probably somewhere over Oklahoma today, rising at 6:30 and feeling rested (last week it was 4:30). It’s been great to get up at dawn and have a couple of hours to myself. I usually walk along the beach for forty five minutes; to the Santa Monica Pier and back before breakfast, passing the homeless people still in their sleeping bags under the palm trees.
After breakfast, I work on my book. I am able to dart on to my computer several times a day to make adjustments to the work in progress, rewriting, redesigning, lettering and drawing elements to insert into the layout. Last night, while waiting for a final meeting on casting, I finished my final read through and am pretty much satisfied. The book is 208 pages long; each with a unique design, rimming with drawing and colors and thoughts and weird lettering. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done and I feel deeply satisfied by it. I could go on tweaking forever and yet it also feels quite complete, organically whole. I will look at it on the plane again tonight and then send it off to my editor.
I’ve spent most of my days over the past week and a half working on the campaign we are set to start shooting next week. We’ve figured out every shot and transition, pulling the spots apart and reassembling them, challenging them to their basic premises and seeing how we can plus them. We have dozens of roles to cast across the campaign and each day look at DVDs full of actors in LA and New York. Last night was our last round of callbacks and we are in pretty good shape. This afternoon we will take our clients through all of the decisions we make and on Tuesday the cameras will start to roll. We have tested so-called ‘animatics’ (basically cartoon versions of the spots that let us see how people respond to the basic plots of the spots) with consumers and they have all done exceptionally well, hitting historic highs for communication, persuasion and likeability, so we are hoping that our clients will be filly on board with all of the subsequent decisions we’ve been making. But, of course, one never knows. Our director has just finished shooting a movie and every day must meet with the studio and discuss the edit; he says it is a horrible experience and one he won’t repeat any time soon.
This evening, I’ll be on the red-eye back to New York. I’ll get to spend a few days with my family (who I miss terribly) and to duck into my office and straighten out some things on the other parts of my account. We are in the midst of launching a huge print campaign too and have photographers to hire and many, many details to work out.
It has been a very stressful experience because so much is riding on our efforts both at the clients and at the agency. Hopefully things will all go smoothly and the tension will subside.
My book is keeping me sane, quite honestly. It is like a quiet lagoon I can dive in to when all around me is chaos. It’s not just the fact that it’s a real project that has been met with so much good energy so far. It’s also that it’s mine; a little world of my own making that reflects nothing but my own experience of reality. It’s also something I hope will be very positive for those who share it and will help them to embrace their own creativity and make lagoons of their own. Drawing has always brought me such peace and happiness and the further I wander into the Valley of Darkness, the more important a beacon it becomes.
Sure, my book is going to be published — but that’s not it; all of the books that precede it, the 38 volumes of drawings I have filled in the past few years, have all brought me this satisfaction, helping me see the world as it truly is, not a tangle of subjectivity and judgment and tensions and ego, but a place of peace and great beauty, even in the smallest things.
That said, I’ve finished my breakfast now. I’m going to go and do a little drawing in the sunshine before my day takes off.

Chillin' with Dylan

dannygregory1 Comment

stones

Last week, I was hit by a sniffling cold midday. I spent the last few hours of the workday back at home, in bed with tea and Bob Dylan’s new memoir. By the next morning, I’d bounced back and finished reading the book.
For most of my life, I really had no interest in Dylan until about seven years ago when my friend, Bob Dye, more or less forced me to listen to The Freewheelin’ and Highway 61. The music softened my resistance but Pennebaker’s movie, “Don’t Look Back” triggered the sort of instant conversion usually limited to evangelicals. I haven’t paid much attention to the albums from the mid 1970s to the mid 90s but own and play most of the early and late records fairly regularly.
Despite all this enthusiasm, nothing prepared me for Chronicles, Vol. I. I had long assumed that , though I admired the music, the man was arrogant and withdrawn, the sort of person one would never want to spend ten minutes with. Instead, I discovered that Bob Dylan has all the hallmarks of the quintessential creative person (and I’m surprised that this surprised me).
First I was struck by how much he knows about music, all sorts of music, from classical to bebop to rap to doo-wop to the cheesiest sort of pop, and is able to extract something useful and inspiring from all of it. Like Picasso, he believed in borrowing from everywhere … but himself.
Secondly, he has always challenged himself — not to be successful financially and critically — but to constantly grow and branch out in new directions. Except for a period where he admits he was in some sort of creative stupor, he has always been motivated by some flickering notion in the back of his head that slowly grows and blooms as he feeds it. It’s not to ‘show the world’ or provoke the industry, but because he is always feeding himself with new influences that spark fresh ideas and directions.
Thirdly, despite the fact that he is such an important maverick, he has deep roots in those that came before. His love for and appreciation of roots blues and folks music has always been the core of his art. He has solid foundations, ones he forged himself, and he has been layering on top of them for fifty years. Reading about his early record collection had me revisiting mine, pulling out Sleepy John Estes, Dave Van Ronk, and Harry Smith’s American Folk Music once again.
Next, I was struck by his enormous generosity. He is lavish in his acknowledgment of all the influences on his art. He talks about what he learned from all sorts of surprising influences, everyone from Frank Sinatra, Jr. to Daniel Lanois.
It was fascinating to hear how he first came to write music, how content he had been to simply play others’ compositions, and how hesitant he was to compromise the body of folk music, sort of like if Horowitz began playing his own piano sonatas rather than Ludwig Van’s. Slowly Dylan began to introduce his own additional lyrics to folk standards and then eventually to create his own from the staff up.
While he was committed and hard working, Dylan never comes off as terribly ambitious. He wants to keep moving forward, to play for larger audiences so he can have new creative opportunities but he never set out to be a superstar. In fact, in his admiration for pop singers and Tin Pan Alley composers, he acknowledges that playing Woody Guthrie songs hardly seemed the road to fame and fortune, even in the folk-mad days of the early 1960s. Even recently, when he has been touring a lot, it’s to stretch himself creatively, to play music publicly that should be played, to shed the nostalgic classic rock trappings and talk to new audiences in new ways. Miles was much the same way. The still-touring members of the Stones, the Beatles, the Who, etc. have no such creative ambitions.
I’d urge you to read the book and see how it strikes you. I believe it has a lot in it for anyone contemplating their own creativity.
——————
A number of people have written to me for a certain kind of advice. Typically, they’ll ask how they can become professional illustrators or, even more frequently, how they can get books published. I tend to answer such letters less often than I used to because I realize that I don’t have the answers. But I think Bob does. Here are a few landmarks:
1. Figure out what you’re about. What do you like to do, what are your media, your subject matter, your style.
2. Explore. Getting to #1 requires flexibility, openness, a willingness to explore and to try on lots of costumes.
3. Focus. Spend less time on success and more on art. The more you work, the better your art, the more likely things are going to happen. And figure out what you really want. At one point, I just wanted my name on a book jacket, any book. Now I have a clearer sense of what I am willing to spend my time on. And consider your work from the point of view of those who you want to want it. Learn about the industry you are trying to break into and the audience you are talking to. Don’t just send off stuff to inappropriate and uninterested publishers. Understand the market.
4. Move to New York. You may have to make some sacrifices but if you’re not where it’s at, you’re not where it’s at. This applies to those hellbent on commercial success (but, of course, there are many other ways to be successful). But most importantly, when you are in the deep end of the creative pool surrounded by others full of energy and ideas and examples, you learn to swim a lot better.
5. Be generous. Seize every opportunity to thank people and include them in what you’re doing. Give your work away then make more.
6. There are no small parts. Play the coffee shops, pass the basket, don’t just hold out for the Garden. Be willing to illustrate school play programs or diner menus, publish a zine, start a blog etc. whatever will get your work out into the world.
7. Meet like-minded folks and be actively involved with them. Meet other artists and creative people but don’t just talk about the business of art (god, how dull) but share your passion for making things and infect each other.
8. Never complain, never explain. Be yourself and be glad of it. Creativity needs light and nourishment.
9. Above all, do what you love and love what you do. Don’t try to figure out what you should to to be successful but how to successfully express what’s makes you you. There’s nothing more pathetic and boring than those who have done everything they can to mold themselves to the prevailing notions of what is popular. That already exists (it’s on Fox and it’s called American Idol). You need to blaze new paths, your own paths. No one does what you do. Keep it that way by expressing the true you, the inner you.
Remember, Art’s most important job is to light the viewer’s fuse, to create new feelings and insights, to create by sharing. By sharing yourself, you make the world a better place. The important goal is not to win gold records or Hummers or groupies. It’s the same as the goal of every share cropper who picked up a Sears guitar and wailed the blues. To be authentic, to express yourself. That may lead you to Cleveland and the Hall of Fame or, even better, to an enriched feeling of what it is to be human.

Aliens

dannygregory

jellyfishLast night we went to a preview for James
Cameron’s new movie, Aliens of the Deep. It was pretty spectacular in
3-D Imax, all shot on the bottom of the ocean with extraordinary
critters and lunar landscapes. Cameron chatted with us just before the
screening and told us he much preferred these personal efforts to
Hollywood fare and would be continuing down this path. Here’s a guy who
made many of the biggest blockbuster movies ever (Alien, Terminator,
Titanic, etc) and won Oscars (Top of the World, Ma!) and instead of
making more and more crap full of explosions and mayhem has
increasingly devoted his creative energies and resources to these
little underwater documentaries aimed at schools and scientists.
As I mentioned a couple of days, I am thinking these days about the
balance between creativity for one’s pleasure versus creativity for
hire. With the exception of the few Damien Hirsts and Richard Serras
making big bucks, art is a business done mainly for its spiritual
rather than financial rewards. As an illustrator, one can make an okay
living, probably about the same as an experienced postal worker. One
has a certain amount of liberty in the way in which one works but, by
and large, you are executing other people’s ideas or at best creating a
drawing to accompany a story someone else has created. If you work for
publications, you’ll have decent freedom to interpret the assignment
and most of your drawings will be accepted pretty much as you draw
them. If you get one of the rare advertising illustration assignments
still left around, you’ll make a lot more money but have to redo your
work many times to fit the exact visions of the art director, creative
director and client.
Advertising is one of the most lucrative businesses for creative
people. We make double what designers do but generally get half as much
respect from our clients (most of whom make far less than we do). Our
ideas have to go through many layers of approval and then rounds of
testing but millions are spent to share them with the world.
Make no mistake. There is a fundamental difference between the work we
do for ourselves and almost anything we do for hire. Art is an
exploration, an unfolding of things that are deeply rooted in who the
creator is. It is not meant to fit an agenda or even express a message
(though much art is decoded for its ‘messages’, an aspect of the work
that is usually a byproduct of the artist’s process and not its true
purpose). Creativity that is commercial is always restricted by its
purpose. It may seem very free and loose and personal but it isn’t.
Even if one uses a song or an image that were created for personal
reasons and one puts it into advertising or design, one changes its
spirit forever. You can’t help but deform it by changing its content.
The song may sound lovely in the commercial but it is twisted to fit a
different agenda and thus loses it true beauty, a bird in a gilded cage
At the highest end of the advertising and design world, it appears that
top creative people have enormous control and freedom but I know many
such folks and though they are freer than their peers, compared with
the freedom of true fine artists they are crippled slaves.
Making the transition from one world to another is awfully hard.
I have hired artists to make ads for the first time and they are
horrible at it. I have hired movie directors to make their first
commercials and they struggle with the whole notion of shooting
something to time, to fitting a story into 30 seconds. Even Martin
Scorcese balked at it and produced mediocrity compared to directors who
are used to fitting their skills to the task. Composers, photographers,
painters, actors, all have trouble making the transition to the narrow
confines of commercial creativity.
The inverse is equally true. When I first started working with
publishers, I completely misunderstood the relationship. I thought my
editor was my client and assumed I had to follow their suggestions to
the letter. My agent disavowed me of this, pointing out that I
was the client, I was the goose laying the golden eggs, the producer of
the product that everyone else was profiting from ( which is equally
true in advertising but that value equation is rarely acknowledged as
if one’s salary was a lump-sum deal that expunges any rights of
ownership). Sure, the relationship was one of business partnership but
my vision was what my publisher wanted. That was a tough one to get
used to but enormously satisfying and liberating. IWhen I write a book
(and it becomes increasingly so with each book I do), I am out to
express myself and to find the best possible way to do so. Others’
functions is simply to help me understand how clear and engaging I have
been in doing so but the direction and responsibility are mine. That
feels a lot more like art to me. The check one cashes in such a case
may do less for one’s bank account but much more for one’s heart.

These thoughts on the value of creativity are rudimentary and a little
conflicted. I’ll keep working on them and share them as they are
polished.

Hiatus

dannygregory

rooftops2

The western view from my southern balcony. Drawn at the end of a hard day.

It’s about seven years since I started drawing in earnest. In the first couple of years. I went through periods of immense enthusiasm and others of frustration and despair. Eventually drawing just became a thing I did. Not a job, not a hobby, just a healthy habit … like flossing. Days, even the occasional week, went by when I didn’t draw but I always settled back into the groove,
In 1999, I started a job that consumed me. Consumed me like a boa consumes a bunny. Eventually my marriage, my parenthood, my health, my instinct for self preservation were all swallowed up like Laocoön. One of the first victims was drawing. It always seemed there were more important things to do with my time. My brain was constantly roiling with anxieties, pressures, plans, demands, ideas, schedules. So much of what I learned and chronicled in Everyday Matters was locked into a steel box and buried in the attic of my mind.
After four years, I mustered the strength to escape. And soon after, I thought of drawing again.
However, I found myself in a real Catch-22 bind. I was in the process of trying to reinvent my life, to reinforce the things that had mattered to me most in my life and also to push into new creative areas. But my fear of my own cramped and crippled state was holding me back from trying. My self-esteem was low, my faith in my own abilities depleted. At first, I was anxious to even pick up my pen. But I forced myself to try anyway. The fact that my book was coming out, a book that described a me I was afraid I wasn’t any more, embarrassed me into trying.
Much to my relief, I found that I could still draw. Sure, I was a little cramped and my ability to concentrate, observe and relax were shaky, like an invalid rising from a long bed rest. But with a week or so, I started to feel like my old self again. Within a month or so, I was moving into new territory. Today, almost two years later, I see that my growth curve is back on track.
Fear is our greatest enemy. And yet it is a product of the very mind it binds. As such, it can be beaten by will — if the will is on the side of health and development.
I am never going to abandon drawing again. And even if I don’t draw for a day, a week, a month or even a year, I know it is always there for me. I can go home again.

I am.

dannygregory

handssmall

I live on the earth. I am an earthling.
I eat meat and vegetables. I am an omnivore.
I have a wife. I am a husband.
I have a son. I am a dad.
I scratch my ass. I’m an ass-scratcher.
I walk. I’m a walker.
I go to movies. I’m a moviegoer.
I read. I am a reader.
I take photos. I am a photographer.
I play the guitar. I am a guitarist.
I write. I am a writer.
I draw. I am an artist.

Holy Roller Novocaine

dannygregory

signpainter

Most mornings, after breakfast but before we head out for the day, Jack and I flip on our amps, grab our axes and fire it up. One of us plays rhythm, a standard 12-bar blues (E,A,B7) and the other solos, usually with the drive turned up for maximum distortion effect. Fortunately, we have thick floors and forgiving neighbors and for some reason Patti generally ignores or applauds our efforts. After ten minutes or so, we return our Fenders to their stands and go out the door, our fingertips and ear drums still vibrating, adrenaline still coursing through our arms and legs.
After I drop Jack off at the bus to camp, I walk the twenty or so blocks to the office, listening to my iPod. These days my absolute favorite is a new band called The Kings of Leon, three brothers and a cousin from Tennessee who kick serious ass. They are a sleazy, boozy, brawling blend of 70s country rock, satanic heavy metal, surf, and punk, and they channel the spirits of early Stones and Lou Reed and the Strokes , (all of whom I have always loved), and Tom Petty, Eagles, Skynrd, and Zeppelin, (none of whom I’ve paid much attention to) .
Though I think I would have always dug this band, these days I find I can really hear them,. I am aware of each note; I can feel the separation of the instruments; sense what Caleb and Matthew Followill are doing on their guitars; take it all apart and put it back together; and it’s all due to the few months Jack and I have spend whacking our own geetars.
Over the past couple of years, drawing has done the same for my appreciation for art, focusing my likes but quelling my dislikes, broadening my mind and letting me see what I would have formerly walked past or dismissed. I feel increasingly less intimidated by the heavy intellectualism of a lot of contemporary art and get a lot more pleasure whenever I’m in a museum.
You don’t have to be a musician to love music or an artist to love art or a writer to enjoy a novel, but when you try to make it yourself, even in the most rudimentary way, it enhances what you get out of really great Art. In the end, we are all Artists. Some of us have long hair, greasy fu-manchus, and peg leg jeans while others just back up nine-year-olds.