Art making is loaded with paradox. Pops up in all these posts. Here’s a biggie: fame. You can’t draw, paint, write, compose or make anything in any medium unless you make it for yourself—to clarify your own feelings and thoughts. What then? What do you do with it once it’s done? You send it out to the world. Have to, can’t just stash it in the basement. When you put it out there for others to react to, you 
hope it will be understood in some way. Let’s just fast forward with this train of thought: you want fame. But fame, as we all know in our celebrity crazy culture, is problematic. It messes with your brain. What you most love to do—draw, paint, compose, write, et al—is now affected, and infected, by this fame worm.
I’ve just recently discovered a writer, Javier Marias. I
must be the last person in the world to read this guy. When I find an artist this original, I feel the urge to draw his/her face, as a sort of meditation. I’m savoring Your Face Tomorrow, a novel that progresses by digressing, in which I came across this passage:
“…it isn’t what is said of us behind our backs which changes things—which transforms things inside ourselves—it is what someone with authority or armed with mere insistence tells us about ourselves to our
face that reveals and explains and tempts us to believe. It is the danger that stalks every artist or politician, or anyone whose work is subject to people’s opinions and interpretations. If a film director, writer or musician begins to be described as a genius, a prodigy, a reinventor, a giant, they can all too easily and up thinking that it might be true. They then become conscious of their own worth, and become afraid of disappointing or–which is even more ridiculous and nonsensical, but it can’t be put in any other way—of not living up to themselves, that is, to the people it turns out they were—or so others tell
them, and as they now realize they are—in their previous exalted creations. “
And a little later, “There is nothing worse than looking for a meaning or believing there is one. Or if there is one, even worse: believing that the meaning of something, even of the most trivial detail, could depend on us and on our actions, on our intention or our function, believing that there is such a thing as the will or fate, and even some complicated combination of the two. Believing that we do not owe ourselves entirely to the most erratic and 
forgetful, rambling and crazy of chances, and that we should be expected to be consistent with what we said or did, yesterday or the day before. Believing that we might contain in ourselves coherence and deliberation, as the artist believes is true of his work or the potentate of his decisions, but only once someone has persuaded them that this is so.”
I don’t think everyone wants to be famous, regardless of what we see in the various ‘entertainment’ media. I would die happy knowing that my tombstone said: ‘she flew beneath the radar’ For me, art making is the process, the figuring out for myself, and the sheer pleasure of making marks on paper. That really is sufficient for me; what happens after that is something totally different.
I am much more at home with the 19th C. concept that a truly educated person should know how to make visual arts and music. Of course that was an age when entertainment wasn’t left just to ‘trained professionals,’ and the educated person learned these skills in order to entertain him/herself. But I believe it also assumed that a person was educated, and fully human, only to the extent that they had some basic skills in the arts, used all the parts of their brains.
I’ve never had a work accepted in a juried show, and don’t really expect to. Why do I even submit something –I guss recognition that a particular work is acceptable to someone else. But I don’t see that recognition for a work would transfers back some sort of recognition of something in me. I’ve already had my fun, and whatever happens afterwards is like launching a paper airplane; it’s out of my control at at that point. Which I guess is why I give away some of my work, the stuff I’ve bothered to frame, to sidestep the issue of recognition or attribution of worth.
I had trouble untangling the 2 Marias quotes. I assume he is saying that being explained/revealed to ourselves is a two-edged mixed blessing. ok, but doesn’t a skeptical person keep their salt shaker out to take any feedback with a few or many grains of salt? I assume we’ve all had experiences where some has articulated a truth about ourselves that we only intuitively felt, but is Marias implying that people don’t have the brains or internal strength to sort out the useful and the ‘aha’s’, from the b.s. and the feedback with other agendas? Maybe that’s why people like me avoid presenting themselves as trained professionals.
When Marias talks about ‘believing that the meaning of something…could depend on us and … our actions’ is he refering to the maker or the viewer/audience as ‘us’? Meaning exists, but is it the same thing for everyone? Meaning is interactive, mixing what the viewer/audience brings to the encounter with a collection of sign/symbols in the artwork. Knowing something about the artmaker and the time/context in which the work was made, helps and can deepen the experience, but it’s ultimately a encounter between viewer and artwork.
I love that part of the 19th century, too: to be a full human being, even just plain trustworthy, you had to cultivate some sensitivity to art–by actually practicing, drawing, playing the piano, et al.
Marias seems to be saying that an artist is always evolving and the danger of fame is that it fixes him/her at one point in his/her development.
I would certainly like to hear more on this from more people out there.
Excellent blog posting Katherine and I LOVE your drawings! ….and I do agree with Marias’ comments about “fame” being something that artists both strive to achieve, and then feel bound and constrained within once it is “achieved”. Take the experience of working with a gallery. If the dealer decides to “represent” you in her gallery, then it is often assumed that person would like you to continue producing the same or similar “content”, especially if the work “sells well”. So as artists, the desire to explore and grow becomes restricted by the expectations of the dealer’s (and our own need for income) need for sales.
My own experience points to this truth….won’t bore you with the details but suffice it to say, there is always pressure on artists to keep the recognition/sales/career moving forward while maintaining some sense of personal integrity. Whether that involves “meaning” or whatever ideas the artist may have about her own work/life/purpose, is an issue with which we all struggle….
to Maggie, remember that juried shows tend to serve a few of these “needs” as artists, but also know that jurors are forced to “reject” many good works simply due to the numbers, and that presentation and personal predilections do affect the outcome….having been a juror for various shows, it helps me realize that the worth of my own creative output is not dependent upon whether it is “accepted” or not….this is a great topic for discussion, barely touched upon by my comments…
I have a friend who comments, usually during the Olympics ‘season’, that he could never sell his work because he’s afraid of losing his amateur status. Christine’s comments remind me that, as a hard-core amateur, I contentedly inhabit a different part of the world from her and Katherine. For anyone who tries to make a living from one of the arts, I agree that it’s an odd sort of dance between evolving as an artist and navigating the issue of what sells (and could sell again).
The commercial side of this dance comes under the umbrella of ‘branding’, having a recognizable brand for the critics and the public. I love it when I see uncharacteristic works of well-known artists, because it’s outside the brand. On the other hand, would I even have gotten to see the uncharacteristic pieces had not the artist become well known? Another odd dance.
I have enough of an inner child to be disappointed when my work is rejected from a juried show, but the disappointment is pretty brief. As a former amateur musician, failing an audition was harder. You were left with only your instrument and your skills–with the visual arts, I still have my drawing and it still is good.