Creative Constipation

Ever hit that creative wall? Can’t think of nothing new? It happens to all of us. The inspiration is there, but nothing comes to mind.

Authors call it ‘writer’s block’. Artist stare at a blank canvas and see nothing. A musician sits down with an instrument and there are no dots on the page.

Some days there are overload of ideas and it is difficult to keep up with them. Other days there is nothing.

Collaboration can help to gel new ideas together. Another person’s thoughts make take you to a different place for new adventures.

Trying a different medium might help getting things flowing. A novelist might try a short story or poetry or a kid’s book? A painter might put down the brushes, pick up a pencil or some chalk, get outside of the studio and with a big pad of paper get a new view. A musician could put down their usual instrument and go to a different one. Playing the same notes creates a different sound.

Still stuck?

Try going back to a previous piece of art put aside many years ago. Perhaps an old story could be refreshed and continued. With new skills and experiences a work of art can be refurbished.

Give it a try.

planB

 

Don’t know if you had a Plan A or if for some reason you had to adjust your life. Maybe that first marriage didn’t work out? You weren’t the first choice anyway. Maybe that career was interrupted by a pregnancy? Perhaps your car breaks down? Perhaps you get fired? Perhaps you become disabled? Perhaps you lose your house? Perhaps you get addicted?

There are too many options for Plan A to go array. Do you have a Plan B? Or maybe a Plan C?

Insurance is sold as an alternative of repayment for possible injury or disaster. Haven’t check the home owner policy recently to see if a wildfire wiping out the community is covered? Don’t know if theft insurance covers flash mobs?

If you are a politician running for a position of power, can you convince enough people to donate to your cause of self-preservation? If not, what is your fallback plan? They are hiring at Burger World.

The ‘American Dream’ had plotted out a Plan A for all the baby boomers. Follow Plan A and you will live prosperous and happy.

Get a good education. Go to church. Mind your manners. Do as you are told. Play the game fairly.

In school they’d ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” then your life was forged in that direction. You were going to work for your family business or become a lawyer, doctor or Indian chief. Get married, buy a house with a picket fence, have 2.5 children and a pet. Cut the grass on Saturdays and cook-outs in the summer.

Not everyone had that Plan A.

Due to caste or monetary or physical restrictions, some had to adjust dreams for reality. Plan A was survival. Shelter, food, clothing, transportation was Plan A. If that didn’t work, go to Plan B.

I, personally, didn’t have a Plan A. I had no desires for powerful corporate positions that came with fame and fortune. I just went with the flow to see what would happen. Seems to worked out pretty well (so far). Like everyone else there were potholes and speed bumps and detours, but stay the course and not cause too much obnoxious behavior will keep the peace and tranquility of a pleasant life.

My Plan B would have been music. It was the only other thing I was interested in.

Like everything else, I didn’t want to study music. I wanted to ‘play’ music. I’d learn as I observed others, tinkered with different sounds and be awarded by applause.

I look back at what could have been more than a hobby but a career. This would have been Plan B. I didn’t have a Plan C.

I grew up basically jamming with friends and strangers in smokey bars, backyard parties and whatever room we could play what we called music and possibly get paid money. We used instruments and sound systems that were thrown together or constructed by members of the band or friends who wanted to tinker with electronics. This was not a good Plan B.

Late nights, when the performance was over and the audience left and the lights turned off but ‘the band’ stayed around to wind down and enjoy being together. Unfortunately, this would not go well with a 9-5 job or the requirement of paying the bills.

Without an entourage and roadies bringing all your cables and microphones and instruments around and setting them up so all the ‘performers’ had to do was walk out on a stage, listen to the screams, hope to play the right notes and leave hot and sweaty.

Then move onto another show at another town to another audience to criticist your performance. When every day is a vacation, except for eternal sleep deprived alcohol fueled routines become a habit.

Music is an industry. Just like government, communication, transportation, manufacturing, entertaining others for a price is an art. There is a bias of this industry and without the latest ‘hit’ the magic will fade.

Being from a time of ‘plug and play’ is difficult to realize the amount of equipment, lights, sound, tractor trailer trucks and road crew to assemble what the audience expects to see at every event or festival.

The struggle to stay in the public attention may demand outrageous behavior or enormous photographic exposure. Wearing clothing not normally seen on the street or acting outrageous to get attention as you age. Not sure it validates the talent or accomplish the job requirements.

Content with accomplishing Plan A so far and don’t want to have to make a Plan B.

Teach me to be creative

 

How do you teach a ‘creative’ class? Better yet, how do you take a mail order course to learn how to draw and become rich and famous?

These ads were in the back of comic books to entice the young mind to save up a piggy bank and mail in a fee to get a booklet on tips and tricks to become an ‘artist’. You could hang the diploma on the wall, but you may not be creative?

I personally feel we are ALL born creative. Why not? There is this big world to explore. Sights and sounds and motion and colors and other people like you to discuss what you see and feel.

Being creative is expressing your reaction to the world around us. To some it is writing. To some it is making drawings or paintings or pottery or prints. To some it is using the body to express the feelings inside. To some it is to make a noise that the body can move to.

Some can categorize this as the ‘arts’, but there is more to being creative. The person who had the idea of making flying buttresses was creative. The person who made the transistor to make a portable radio that turned into your mobile devices was creative. The brothers who turned thoughts of bicycles into airplanes were pretty darn creative. That guy who plugs in the first light bulb was creative because it had never been done before.

“I can’t draw a straight line” some will say as an excuse from applying an idea or a vision on paper. “That is why someone created the ruler”, I reply. If drawing isn’t your method to express yourself, maybe it is cooking or gardening or crafts. Going to the ‘Arts in the Park’ craft shows is not viewing the Guggenheim, but each one of these tables are full of people’s creative expressions (for sale).

Note to all: Unless you are a creative doctor or mechanic or some software whiz-kid, being ‘creative’ is not a money maker. Sales people used to say, “You are just drawing pictures” and my response was, “I could do your job; you can’t do my job”. Still, it is difficult to sell an idea without a ROI.

To me, the best way to be ‘creative’ is take your time. Take in what is going on around you. Take time to look closely to the flowers and the trees. Look at the shadows and the patterns on the leaves and bark. See how they lean to get the most sunshine and how they react when it rains.

To really see what being creative is all about, watch children. As they draw chalk images on the sidewalks or explore the weeds or blend colors that don’t match because they haven’t been taught not to. Techniques and media refine the wonder. Experience and repetition cultivate the style.

Be creative however works for you. It will show up in your dreams.

Career: ARTIST

 

There are many different titles used to describe employment. There are doctors, lawyers, mechanics, politicians, teachers, policeman (woman, person?), preacher, bartender, astronaut, prostitute, and many more.

I have to file the line of how did I worked to get a paycheck to pay for food, shelter, transportation, entertainment…as: ARTIST.

What is an artist?

A person who produces paintings or drawings as a profession or hobby.

A person who practices any of the various creative arts, such as a sculptor, novelist, poet, or filmmaker.

A person skilled at a particular task or occupation.

A person who creates art (such as painting, sculpture, music, or writing) using conscious skill and creative imagination.

In much of the world today, an artist is considered to be a person with the talent and the skills to conceptualize and make creative works. Such persons are singled out and prized for their artistic and original ideas

A person who practices or performs any of the creative arts, such as a sculptor, film-maker, actor, or dancer. There is no mention if qualifications, how much money you make or the years of experience you have. It's quite acceptable to call yourself an artist even if you don't make a living, or trained

Everyone is capable of making art, everyone is capable of expressing their innate creativity in some way, but the practice of actually being an artist is work, it is labor, it is a practice of making that requires intentionality, skill and craft.

Just like how we develop as people, artistic talent is a combination of nature and nurture. If you make art, you are an artist. It's not dictated by financial success or professional success. But if you don't make art, then you aren't an artist anymore.

Different Types of Artists by Style

·      abstract artist.

·      figurative artist.

·      academic artist.

·      graphic artist.

What are the 5 characteristics of an artist?

·      Persistence. Persistence is the quality that allows someone to continue doing something or trying to do something even though it is difficult or opposed by other people. ...

·      Patience. Patience is the quality of calm endurance. ...

·      Passion. ...

·      A Sense of Adventure. ...

·      Discipline.

Self-taught artists are artists who did not receive formal training in the visual arts, or whose formal training did not influence their artistic practice. Self-taught artists may or may not work as professional artists in the mainstream art world.

Some people believe that you need to be born with talent in order to be a good artist, but this is not true. Anyone can learn to draw or paint with enough practice. Some of the most famous artists in history were not born with talent, but they practiced regularly and became great artists.

I’m somewhat intimidated with the term: ARTIST.

There are those who’s names are equated with ‘art’. I don’t have a name like Picasso or Michelangelo or Andy Warhol that are written in the history books. I don’t have painting in museums (or painted on railroad cars). I don’t have songs that made the Billboard Top #20.

I did get accolades and awards and enough cash to survive from college to forced retirement with ideas and basic line drawings as a ‘commercial artist’.

Artist, no matter if you are a portrait painter or a pot thrower or a print maker or a dancer, musician, actor, baker, hobbyist, writer, singer, barber, knitter, seamstress, photographic, gardener, must present their talent to accumulate enough greenbacks to survive. Like an athlete, I didn’t have a fallback plan. I had no other talent except to observe, think and graphicly create an image that would sell the idea.

I tried photography and bought a nice camera with lenses and understood (from the professionals) that one shot may take a roll of film. I didn’t have a darkroom so I couldn’t afford it. I didn’t have the space for pottery or woodworking, so I was stuck with a drawing board. I tried comics but after enough rejection letters decided that was not my goal in life.

I did one show of black and white illustrations after college, but the review didn’t understand my premise. Friends (who defined themselves as ‘artist’ hoped to make a living painting in basements while working in local bars to pay the electric bill. Others played in the local symphony or clubs hoping for the big break to play in venues somewhere else.

I decided to work for an established organization that had security. There was more money to be had in advertising agencies but it was not steady work.

I was graduating from an art college but did not have to show my portfolio to be hired. The local newspaper was transiting from hot metal to digital manufacturing and their production union went on strike. Instead of being referenced to the ‘paste-up’ department, I was immediately hired in the ‘creative service’ department. It was then that I learned all the fine art classes did not prepare me for the real world of preparing advertising art.

Watching and being taught new techniques of using amberlite, velum, press type, border tape and x-acto knives (didn’t use the box cutters). Was impressed by some who had sketching talents to amaze while others could barely draw a straight line (even with a T-square and triangle).

The fascination to learn more, I ventured to a local book store and set up a monthly purchase of ‘artsy fartsy’ books for my library while at the same time set up an account at the school’s artistic tool supply store. I set up a studio at home to match or better my daily working conditions.

I did some ‘freelance’ work on the side but it was such a pain to get paid by clients that would say, “You are just drawing pictures”. Setting a cost on creating art is difficult. What is the price of an idea?

It must have worked, for I got awards and titles and pay raises. Even had to go to New York to participate in a banquet for the #100 Best Art Directors. They even had this big bound black book with gold embossed letters as door prizes for $100. I didn’t buy one.

Being a commercial artist, you are assigned a client or a project to make saleable within a deadline. If the results accomplish the anticipation, you get paid.

Then the ‘digital’ age came and everything changed.

A small television box attached to a keyboard and some weird wheel called a ‘mouse’ could provide an artist with ALL the tools to create ART. The first intuitions were basic but showed the potential for possibilities. I was lucky enough to participate in the incarnations and revelations.

In the end, I can accept the title of ARTIST as a career.

I’d drawl pictures for a living.

Follow the script

 

Life is just a movie and you are the star. Unfortunately, there are no script writers, so you have to write your own. It is sort of a play-as-you-go game.

Have you ever been in a play?  There are scripts for each actor for they are only voice to the words written by someone else. If there are no scripts, the actors just stand there. Imagine a soap opera with no scripts. The actors may have played the role of a character for years but the camera wouldn’t know who was going to speak next to get the right angle and lighting. The microphones would pick up voices speaking over each other (as we do in conversations) and when are the breaks for the commercials?

I was never a lead role in a play, but even as an extra I sat through the constant rehearsals until I knew every word of the scripts. The scriptwriter must remember what the actor must memorize and if writing a long soliloquy, words might be forgotten. Without a cue card, someone off stage will have to prompt to keep the play going.

So, are you following your script?

Have you handed out copies for the audience to follow (instead of sub-titles)?  Then they can decide if a conversation is worth having and plan for a response.

Your daily script might be determined by the weather or location or association with others. Your script seems repetitive but it is always changing. Yesterday at the Tummy Temple I spoke with a fine dressed gentleman about riding a bike and today I talked to Kermit about the fine weather. Plus, I got a big grin from a cutie pie extra.

There are no rewrites to your script for you are writing it as you go. If there was you could go back to page 379 and change what you said in 1968, If that happened, history and time and space would change. We can’t have that.

So, turn the page and let’s continue with this adventure.

Ready camera two and action!

Let’s Make a Music Video

 

So, you’ve been sitting in your bedroom with your cheap guitar and three chords and have written the next top-of-the-pops Billboard #1 hit. You’ve even recorded it on a cassette deck and are ready to make the big time.

You could try to upload it in hopes that enough ears will listen to it and offer you a recording deal for streaming worldwide or someone might hear it and like you’re singing or writing or tune and sample it to reap the financial rewards and buy that fancy car and mansion up in the hills.

First you need a video. Every piece of music has to have a video. Since the beginning with MTV, to promote your hit single requires a video and now it is easier than ever to make your name appear on all the festivals and late-night shows.

If you are a combo band and unless one of you are fantastically cute, you might need quick cuts and lots of running around. That is all they did with the Beatles ‘Hard Day’s Night’ and they wore suits…in black and white.

If you are a solo singer, you can set the mood of the song with location and just wandering around. There are enough filters on your phone to match the mood.

You may need to have some assistance combining the sound and the video to the beat but there is plenty of free software out there and videos to show you the way.

Now you are ready to upload your 2-minute music video to YouTube or Tik Tock or Instagram or whatever the latest incarnation of distracted watching. If you don’t get viral hits and become the next name to remember until we forget, you have taken up some space on some foreign computer on the cloud.

 

Good Luck!

Pink Slip Parties

 

I try and be aware of the global economy. I don’t delve into the financial pages but listen to ‘Marketplace’ everyday to see if they are playing the wah-wah trombones.

When the pandemic came around and everyone couldn’t stand being close in the office and decided to work from home, there was remote control management. Of course if you were declared an ‘essential worker’ you had to go into drive-thro to flip burgers or move the boxes in the warehouse to deliver the purchases people working at home are doing instead of working. The few people on the street looked like a doctor or a cowboy.

Back in plague times, the complaints were companies needed more workers. Incentives were used to increase hiring. Wages went up and employment seemed empyrean.

Suddenly, someone pulled the plug on the health emergency and we all took off our mask, started grouping together with laughter and solo cups while the office buildings stood empty. What will management do?

Come back to the office, so we can have innovation meetings and interaction face-to-face instead of zoom screens. Fill those chairs and a supervisor will come by your cubicle regularly to check up on you. You, as a worker, can get back into commutes in the rain, parking, dressing in something that isn’t elastic decorated in teddy bears, rushed lunch breaks, jammed copiers and anxiety of watching the incompetence of others. This is what ‘work’ was before the plague.

Now it seems we have ‘too many’ workers. Are there too many butts to fill a chair? Is there unforeseen duplication? Is AI accomplishing technology that analog flesh-and-blood human beings used to do? Time to thin the ranks.

The trend today is layoffs. Whether it is an announcement on the companies website or a pink slip handed out by the HR department or (worst of all) a tweet to not come back tomorrow. If you had an idea where you were on the food chain by your annual performance review or just packed up a cardboard box, handed in your security codes and escorted out the door; you’ve been fired.

Personal deflation to your ego and financial disruption happen in a moment. Like an illness, no one plans for a sudden life change. Some will take it as a sign to redefine their priorities and transition; others will whine and moan and complain.

I can’t tell heads or tails of the employment/unemployment figures. The candidates who want to maintain the plush life will find the numbers that will report the GDP is growing, the stocks are rising and manufacturing is coming home to the uneducated unemployed to get them off the dole. If everyone is earning a paycheck, will homelessness problem and welfare disappear?

So I read of thousands of previously employed getting together for ‘pink slip’ parties. Don’t know if that is to commiserate with one another or form new networks for the way forward. Each one of these parties needs to include the families, educators, realtors, law enforcement and politicians for it will affect them all.

My ‘pink slip’ came fourteen years ago. I’m too old to have to look for options. The former company is still sending pension checks and I may not outlive the industry that employed me. I will continue to watch the crystal ball and have empathy for future generations.

YOU’RE FIRED!