The leap.

dannygregory96 Comments

30d3176299e211e19dc71231380fe523_711,305 days ago, I started my career in advertising. Since then I have worked fulltime at nine agencies. In the spring of 2004, I freelanced briefly and also managed to write The Creative License.  Other than those brief months, I have spent most of my hour as an adult employed by other people and working on whatever they wanted me to work on.

When my boy entered high school, Patti started asking me, “How much longer are you going to do this? When Jack goes to college, will you finally stop? Aren’t there things you’d rather be doing?” For most of my career, my mum has asked me, “How can you stomach working for corporate America? When are you going to  give it up already?” Most of the people I work with have, at one point or another, asked me, “Don’t you make enough money from your books to stop working in advertising? It’s amazing you have done so much while holding down this job. Imagine what you could do if you did it full-time.”

I’ve done a lot of shrugging and changing of the subject over those thirty years.

A few months ago, I realized something had to change. I liked my job but I wasn’t growing any more. And it seemed like I spent a lot of time with my nose pressed to the window of my nice office, looking out at the wide world where so many people seemed to be doing so many interesting things. And now Jenny was echoing Patti, asking me if I wouldn’t be happier focussing on art, films, books, teaching, speaking…

With Jack happily at RISD and with no more real day-to-day obligations except walking my dogs, I realized I no longer had to make excuses to myself. I could finally try out something new.

I am writing in this in my empty office. The surprisingly few possessions I have accumulated over the past nine years here are in a bag and I am watching the clock for the last time. It’s my last day and in half an hour or so, I will step into the next chapter of my life.

My next steps are far from complete and I have realized what a luxury that is.

But I do have a big wish list to tackle. My editor at Chronicle is working with me on a really exciting new book project. I have the outlines for three others just waiting to be tightened up and sent off. I have written all of the first online class I will be teaching. Now, I just need to shot a bunch of cool videos to go along with it and release it to you soon. I have a big stack of art books I want to reread and study. There are so many galleries and museum shows I want to attend. Jack and I have some art projects we want to work on before he goes back to school. I have a long, long list of things I want to write about for my blog. I have several new invitations to give talks and workshops. Several very interesting new projects have just come knocking on my door that could open all sorts of new directions. And there are so many people I’ve met over the years, wonderful inspiring artists, who I want to get to know better and to find ways to collaborate with.

Most importantly, I am also keeping a large chunk of time open for serendipity. Open space that is reserved for adventure. If you have any you’d like to send my way, fire me a note.

The first big adventure: going bi-coastal. In September, we will be renting an apartment in Los Angeles and for at least a year will work there and here in New York. A fresh address, a fresh perspective, and loads of fresh possibilities. I can’t wait.

Well, I better go and say my last round of goodbyes, grab my bag, punch out for the last time, and head off into the sunset. See you on the trail!

FOM (Friends of the Monkey)

dannygregory14 Comments

3-monkeys

While your inner critic, that churlish monkey, sits glowering in your head, he has allies all around. They are camped on the hill and are riding in from all points of the compass, waiting for their colleague on the inside to lower the gates and let them flood in and maraud.  Most of these confederates are unwitting. They don’t know they are part of the army that can bring you down. But the monkey knows.

Some of them are driven by monkeys of their own. When you share your creative plans, your intention to start making art or to invest in yourself, they will start chattering from the trees, gibbering in fear. Fear for themselves. When you announce your brave decision to reverse the course of your life, to begin to make things again as you haven’t since third grade, you will set a shining example that will reflect back their own failures to live up to their dreams.

This isn’t universal of course. Many will applaud you and offer you encouragement. But skulking in the crowd will be those who are resentful and bitter and frustrated. And they will begin to lob suggestions, improvements, cautions, and advocacy for the Devil, designed to make you balk and backtrack.

Creativity is a particular magnet for this sort of monkey convocation. In my decades as a creative professional, I have encountered this spirit time and again. When I am awash with excitement at a new project or the possibilities of an assignment, these monkeys slink into my office, slump on to my couch and start to tell me the latest gossip, the latest management bungle, the latest reason to lose faith. They will complain about the assignment, the industry, the market. They will try to drag me into long sessions of venom and bile. They will splash me but I work to remain unblemished. Better to get up and leave that be infected with their toxicity. They are creative at coming up with reasons to stall and malinger, such is their monkeys’ gift of gab, and my own internal monkey howls with glee and joins the chorus.  These voices get me nowhere and need not to be heeded. Cut the chat short and get back to work.

And, while I am busy pointing fingers, let me point them at the mirror too. For in my own moments of weakness and doubt, I have been equally capable of joining or even initiating these grumblefests, feeling insecure in myself, acquiescing to the primate within and dragging in to a colleague’s office, leaning on my hairy knuckles. It’s a toxic affair that makes everyone feel, not purged, but depleted and sick.

Another band of accomplices are the media. The monkey loves the mindless vegetation of watching TV, numbing you with celebrities and gossip. Not the stories of artists and creative inspiration but the mindless doings of fabricated and often malignant chitchat. Besides being a time waster and anesthetic, the media can also skew your perception of art, artists and the true nature of success.

The banker is another friend of the monkey, cajoling you to focus on the bottom line. So is the electric company and the credit card company. They can make you do the monkey’s bidding, downscaling your ambitions because you feel trapped. They don’t deal in might-bes, they want theirs and now. They warn you not to take risks, to keep your day job, to be sensible. Of course, they have the right to get paid. But not to decide your future.

If you are a creative professional, you had to overcome the monkey just to get your career started. The monkey probably warned you and your parents: Don’t be a designer, an art director, an illustrator, an architect, a programmer, a musician, etc. It’s too risky, too competitive, etc. but you did nonetheless. But maybe now you see that the monkey finally let you follow this professional path but now won’t let you pursue your true passion — making art, speaking in your own voice, being your own client. The monkey giveth and he taketh away.

If you are wrestling with this issue, stop thinking. The monkey wants to engage you, wants you to obsess about his heckling and turn your creative energy into a response ego him. Don’t. Focus instead on what you want to do. Draw something. Write something. Then don’t look at it. Don’t judge it. Don’t show it to anyone else. Turn the page and write some more, do another drawing, dream another dream. When the books is done, fill another. Just keep going. Don’t ask for feedback from anyone who might derail you. Better to work alone in a cave than throw your work to the monkeys. Distance and perseverance are the best antidotes to this scourge. Build up your ramparts and lock the beast in your darkest, deepest dungeon.

Then get back to work.

Do you find your monkey has allies? What do they say? How do you deal with them? I’d love to know.

Tragedy in the Art world.

dannygregory24 Comments

burnt-picasso

I just finished reading a horrible story in the paper. Apparently a Romanian woman’s son stole a number of works of art from a museum in Rotterdam, paintings and drawings by Matisse, Monet, Gauguin, Picasso, Lucian Freud and more. Convinced that if the paintings no longer existed, her son could not be prosecuted, the woman burned them all in the stove. Experts analyzed the ashes and concluded that her grim tale is almost certainly true. These masterpieces are lost to the world forever.

As I sat in the kitchen reading this sad story, my mind wandered off on a tangent. How many works of art have I destroyed? Not literally in my kitchen stove, but in the furnace of my mind. How many paintings have I not done? How many drawings have I aborted? How many pots have I not thrown? How many films have I not made? I thought of all the times I thought I should do some drawing and instead watched “Real Housewives”. I thought about that etching class I was thinking of taking last year and didn’t. Poof, all those would-be etchings went up in smoke. Or that three-week trip I took to Japan when I didn’t do a single sketch in my book. Or that Sketchbook Film we planned to do about a fashion illustrator but never got around to.

This isn’t the monkey talking, brutalizing me for my indolence. It’s just a fact. Every time I find a reason not to create, the art I might have made doesn’t exist. It may not have all been great art, worthy of Rotterdam, but it would have been another step on the path to better art, more fluid, more expressive, more fun.

What have you not made? And how can we fight the fire?

Fresh wisdom to trump the monkey.

dannygregory29 Comments

3-monkeys

I was served two giant helpings of insight this morning, both in my email inbox.

First, this note from Evelyn:

Hi Danny,

I recently ran a drawing class for adults – a sort of introduction to urban sketching, really. On the first day I shared the story of my own rediscovery of drawing, a rediscovery largely fueled by Everyday Matters. I talked about letting go of attachment to the outcome, focusing on seeing and the connection that is made with the world around us as we draw. I said don’t wait for it to be perfect before you share what you draw.

One of the participants then told me, ” I don’t have much confidence and I have no experience. The reason I signed up for this class was because the drawing on the flyer was not that good.”

It was a drawing I’d done with a bamboo pen and ink I didn’t know was water soluble, so the watercolour kind of ran into the ink and there are some pretty messy bits.

This woman’s words made a big impression on me. There is so much value in modelling joyful imperfection!!

When I teach in high schools, I don’t teach art, but the same principle holds. We need to help people to be able to love themselves unconditionally. To be self critical without anxiety and to create fearlessly.

With gratitude for all you have given, and my best wishes, Evelyn

And then, on a different but somehow related note, this blogpost from Jennifer: Live up to your full potential. It’s a lovely perspective on how to judge whether you are making the most of your gifts.

What if we redefined what this whole potential thing really meant? What if, instead of having to prove our creative selves in a particular area of art, we could reach our potential by simply living artfully? What if, instead of striving to make lots of money with our art, or show just how technically perfect we could draw… what if we engaged in our everyday lives with an artful eye, probing the moments for beauty? What if, we reached our potential by daily living the life WE HAVE, the good and the bad, the mundane and the magical, with open arms and full hearts, celebrating and capturing some of it in an artful manner along the way? What if living up to our potential as artists had MORE to do with seeing the beauty in all of life and sharing it with one or more persons, than with being able to say we have devoted our whole lives to making a career of x or y or z.

To me, these are both conversations about the monkey, about how we can cope with the incessant jabber of our self-doubt and -criticism that wastes so much energy and time. As Evelyn points out, our ‘failures’ are in fact our richest lessons. The most important things is just to start, to make, to move forward, and to shun the wimper within that woud keep us forever in the starting blocks. That voice isn’t just an impediment, it’s a cancer that chews on us, winnowing us down to smaller and smaller versions of ourselves, as we brutalize ourselves with doubt and recrimination. Be kind to yourself, and be creative.

Jennifer’s lessons comes from outside, from the larger world that uses the dollars as the only true yardstick, from the golden monkey now internalized. This monkey voice is just one of the sheepdogs of economics and really has nothing to do with us.  It barks the simple cry of the market. For art to be valued financially, it must be a limited commodity. If everybody made art, it would be so common it would have no financial value. So our society is geared towards making art an exceptional behavior created by the few, a meager supply managed by the system of galleries and museums that turn human creativity into a market.

So it’s not surprising that when you graduate from crayons and want to continue creating art as part of your everyday life, you are discouraged from making at every turn. The only way that art can be sanctioned is if you pass through the system of art schools, galleries and critics that will cull the herd and protect the market.

Fortunately, the Internet has made it possible to share your creativity with other people and to get positive feedback and constructive criticism without financial transactions. The Internet has liberated us from the marketplace of art. It has restored the impulse for creative expression that has existed in our species since we painted bison on the  walls of caves.

This isn’t anti-capitalist. It is pro-self-expression. And it is optimistic. Because no matter whether it is stifled by the government, by religion, by the marketplace or by snobs and bores, ultimately that impulse will return and prevail. Now more than ever.

One of the wonderful things about the Internet is that value and scarcity are no longer inextricably linked. Now good ideas are what are valuable and good ideas can be copied over and over and shared with billions and still retain their value. We live in the golden age of creativity, a new renaissance. Now making art will no longer be discouraged. it will be essential.

art with a small a is not a product. It’s a point of view.  It’s a way of life.

art isn’t for museums. art is for everyday.

The Art world is about money. art is about passion, love, life, humanity — everything that is truly valuable.

Calling all teachers!

dannygregory6 Comments

Are you a school teacher? Have you used illustrated journaling to teach your kids? Have you used any of my books in class? If so, I would love to talk to you about your experience and what you’ve learned. Please write to me at dannygregory@mac.com

Please share this request with any teachers you know.Thanks so much.

How to kick monkey butt.

dannygregory28 Comments

I’ve written a lot about the nature of the inner critic that confounds our creativity. And so far, I’ve urged you to fight it by just getting to work. That may not be as easy as all that, so let me be more specific with some ways you can push past that hectoring little voice in your head.

Just start. Do one small drawing on one small piece of paper. A Post-It. Or draw a loose grid on your sketchbook page and fill in one single square with a line drawing of your foot. Whistle while you do it. If the monkey starts to grumble, hum louder. Push off that inner criticism for 120 seconds until you can get something down on the page.

Creating something, anything, can break the logjam. And it can give you something to look back at hours later, to get excited about. Initially, the monkey may sneer about your tiny attempt but go back at it and look at it again. Find something to love in it. It’s in there.

Don’t talk about it. If you are having block, don’t endlessly discuss it and seek solace from others. The more you do, naming it and broadcasting it, The more you solidify the block, the more of  a living entity it becomes. Give it a name and you give it power. Stress over it and you become twisted and jailed.

My words here are a double-edged sword. I want you to be able to see that your problem is a common one, that you don’t suck any more than the rest of us. But the more we dwell on this discussion, the more attention the monkey gets, and the less time we are spending making something.

Give him a banana.  Try holding out some sort of reward to yourself. A bribe to get it done. Say, “if I do three drawings today, I can buy a new fountain pen. ” “Or I can watch TV for an hour if I draw during three of the commercial breaks”. Or “I can eat that donut, if I draw it first .”

Use this tool judiciously. You don’t want to end up obese, broke, or in jail.

donut

Get your lazy ass up. If the monkey tells you are a hopeless slug, agree with him. Tell him you want to improve and so you are going to set the alarm a little earlier and start the day right. Sit down and draw before your first cup of coffee. Fifteen minutes of drawing the reflections in the toaster as the coffee perks. Monkeys are lazy bastards too and they can’t get it together so early. I find I do my best work before I start reading email and talking to people and dealing with the day. Then for the rest of the day, I glow with that knowledge that I have already made art today and the rest is gravy. By knocking out a few drawings with the dawn, you will lubricate the wheels of habit while the monkey turns over and keep on snoring.

Do something you definitely suck at. Buy a medium that’s absolutely new to you. Draw on your iPad for the first time. Paint with ketchup on the kitchen counter. Play the digeridoo. By doing something you have never done before, you have the perfect excuse for sucking. If the monkey pops up, you can say, yes, yes, I know but this is my first time. Have fun. You’re making something. Sure, it’s no good. But keep going. Keep making. Keep exploring.

The great ape debates. If you can’t screen out your monkey, tune him in. Really put his critiques to the test. Ask the monkey to take the stand. Grill him.  But this time bring your inner lawyer to dissect his arguments.

Give the primate the benefit of the doubt. Take his arguments at face value and see if they hold any water. Maybe you do have room for improvement — none of us is perfect. You can learn and grow from self-examination. The thing we must avoid is self-destruction and abuse.

So, write down his complaints about you and come up with strong rational responses.  Write these down too. Next time the monkey levels these same criticisms at you, just tell him, “I’ve heard you and responded to the charges. What else you got?”

Stock your own arsenal. Sit down, like I’m doing, and come up with a bunch of ideas to trick yourself into sitting down and coming up with a bunch of ideas. If you want, start by critiquing my suggestions and then making up better ones that will work for you. Hate the idea of getting up at dawn? Fine, then draw at lunch, draw in the train, draw on the toilet. Come on, plus my ideas. What works for you?

The monkeys of yesteryear

dannygregory13 Comments

old-monkey

Whose voice does your monkey channel?

Remember Linda Blair in The Exorcist?  The devil in her spoke to the priest in his mother’s voice, freaking him the hell out. Who is your demon quoting? Maybe it was the first art teacher who said something casual and cruel: “Remember, most people don’t have talent. I’m sure you’re good at something.” Was it your mother who you overheard telling your dad, “He wants me to pay for that painting class. I gotta break it to him, it’s an utter waste of money.” Was it the dean of the art school who rejected your application? The boss who killed all of your favorite ideas? An article about the percentage of art school grads who now work at Starbucks?

For all too many of us, the monkeys of the past are victimizing us, holding us back. Your shrink will tell you that we just have to realize that those monkey ghosts are only alive become we resuscitate them. You can defeat the specters by making stuff, by asserting your talent, by ignoring the grey-bearded monkey ghosts rehashing childhood bullshit. Want to relive an ancient drama? Read Hamlet.

Tell yourself this and believe it: whatever voice you’re hearing, it’s just a spectre. Whatever sword carved the scars into your psyche, you have the power to move past it. As grownups, we have the ability to see that the affronts and critiques of the past are just puffs of air that have long since dissipated. Only we carry them forward, re-recording them in the deepest wrinkles of the brain, keeping them alive year after year. 78 to 45 to cassette to CD to MP3. Same old song.

Every cell in your body is replaced every seven years.  You are a completely new being from cerebellum to big toe nails. You have the power to override the rewrite, to define these ancient wounds as irrelevancies that do not bear on the wonderful creature you are today, an emerging artist with great strength and potential.

You can prove your legacy wrong. Oh, your father wanted to go to art school but wasn’t supported by your grandfather and had to become an accountant so he spent your childhood channeling his pain into squashing you? To hell with that. Whatever happened before Watergate has a statute of limitations and should not crush the dreams you had last night. (That’s a little-known federal law).

Time for a fresh start that’s bright and creative.

What disappointments and harsh words are you reliving whenever you think of making art? How can we help you get past them?

I Left My Art in San Francisco…

dannygregory4 Comments

We had a lovely mini-vacation by the Bay, eating all sorts of things and walking for miles and miles. We had amazing ice cream…

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…at a place with this for its mascot…

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It’s been a bit nippy and drizzly but that didn’t dampen the mood. We bought way too many books and saw so much art everywhere.

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We saw all sorts of beautiful street murals in the Mission, including on one of my favorite of all streets, Balmy Alley:

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I did see the following on a car’s bumper sticker…

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…but then again it was on this car….

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Oh, and I gave my talk at the HOW Design Conference about creativity and sketchbooks. At first, I was a little worried about the turn out…

71885b40dcea11e2947622000a9e138b_7…but ultimately hundreds of people showed up and many came up to say hi afterwards. If you were one of them, I hope you had as much fun in San Francisco as I did.

a2605b5edc7311e2babb22000a1e868c_7Tomorrow morning, back to New York.  (I’ve done way too much traveling of late.)

 

I’m on my way to speak in San Francisco

dannygregory14 Comments

20130622-221855.jpg
Ill be at the HOW Design Conference, hosted by one of my awesome publishers. I spoke at the conference before, when An Illustrated Life first came out, and it was a wonderful experience.
I will be talking to hundreds of graphic designers about How your sketchbook can open your mind, boost your creativity, and rock your world. I am always amazed at how many creative professionals have forgotten how to draw. I hope to turn them on again.
If you are at the conference, please come up and say hi.

The Voice continues

dannygregory43 Comments

monkey-2
I am traveling again, this time on the 6 a.m. train to Washington DC. And again, I am thinking about the Voice in my head (I first wrote about it a couple of days ago) and the other ways in which it can monkey with my creative plans.
This jabbering voice doesn’t resort only to vicious critiques to stymy my creativity. It likes to concoct diversions to distract me too:
Like, why make a drawings with the pen that’s in my pocket when I could plan a trip to the art supply store, and burn up money and energy instead? That’ll make sure I end up on the couch, dozing, my new art supplies still in the bag by the door.
Or, maybe I should just check out some of my pals’ blogs, see what they’re up to. Man, they are so creative and productive. I really do suck by comparison.
Or how about a snack? Maybe we should go out for a donut?
Okay, back to work. Wait, I should get some inspiration, do some research. Let me try to find that David Hockney book I have on the shelf somewhere. Ah, here it is. Hmm, so Hockney mentions a Franz Hals painting here, what did that look like exactly? Let me just pop open Google Images and see… Oh, look, that cat is cute…
All this activity makes it seem like I am doing something, but I’m not really. I’m just pissing away time and defeating my creative impulse with thoughts of fine art, chocolate, naps, sex… The illusion of productivity is the bone the monkey throws me. We’ll start tomorrow, I swear .
Negotiation is the monkey’s ploy. If it isn’t condemning or seducing, it’s bargaining.
But remember, the monkey doesn’t want what’s good for me. He is selfish and vindictive. He wants me slow and weak and distracted so he can have his way — uncreative, status quo,
Here’s another ploy: “There’s no point in starting until you have your act together so let’s get the ducks in a row”. A good stalling tactic but I wont fall for it. Back off, chimp. There are way too many ducks and rows are for accountants. Organization is irrelevant to making stuff. Art needs to be messy. A neat stall is the sign of a dead horse. Sure, it’s a good idea to know where you keep your pencils but being anal doesn’t help you create shit (as it were). The random juxtaposition of stuff and chaos is the seeds of art. If oysters were prissy about keeping out all the sand, we wouldn’t have pearls.
The fact is order, security, and perfection are all illusions. Life can never be perfect and again I am just wasting time.

no-pearl
(For some reason, I am reminded of those boat owners who sit in the marina drinking beer on board and never raise their anchors and head out to sea. Rather than adventures, they have the most expensive bar stools in town.)
The ape loves a good fight too. If I find I am quarreling with others and venting emotion inappropriately, chances are that I am not drawing, not writing, not thinking. Or alternatively, I may find myself overworking, nights and weekends (on projects fueled by drudgery and obligation not passion) living out of balance, out of harmony, out of fast food containers, far from my true self. The monkey loves french fries and insomnia.
In my job, I often encounter people who are driven to melodramatics by their inner monkey puppeteers. They act out, drawing attention to themselves, making excuses, having fits, being prima donnas, making demands, when they could just put their heads down and make more stuff. Client questions your decision? Throw a fit. Need to cover up a blunder? The best defense is a good offensive speech of self-righteous indignation. Not.
Making more stuff is the best revenge. Put your creative energies to work coming up with more ideas, not with histrionics. Get back to work.
Another monkey game is monkeying with my health, mental and physical. Am I not productive because I am depressed? Or is the other way round? Is this cancer or hypochondria? Start doing and see what happens to your mood. If something indeterminate ails me, I hang it up for long enough to write or draw a page or two of my dream. See if I feel better, less blue, more energized. My back won’t hurt, my allergies will recede. When I wake up at 3 a.m. with the ape chattering in my ear, I can only take so much lying there in the darkness. So I crawl out of bed, go to my desk and draw or write something, anything, Then my mind is eased, the chimp goes back to sleep and so do I.

How does the Voice monkey with you? I’d love to know…