I’ve been working on a kind of self-help tract for my own self, to reconcile some of the contradictions of being a caring artist in the shadow of capitalism. This is the second notebook post on the subject. You can find part one here.
If any of this is of any use to you, please consider a donation to MAYK, one of the most forward-thinking big-hearted arts organisations I know, and currently finding themselves at a turning point in less than patient times. I wouldn’t be doing what I do without them.
Artistic instruction, Sri Lanka, 2014
OK, some big statements ahoy, buckle up.
Art is a tool that human beings can use to shape what it means to be alive.
It’s not simply about beauty, or expression, or desire, or truth, or messaging or storytelling or therapy. Compared to our other modes of measuring the world, art’s most distinctive quality is one of freedom. Art is where we can unmoor or unhinge ourselves in the most secure context – which isn’t to say that all art is ‘safe’, but it is forever anchored to play, to imagination.
In the capitalist mindset, the freedoms of art are in no way a priority. For capitalist purposes, first and foremost, art is product – and artists are required to present their work as product at the earliest possible stage, usually before they themselves know the true nature of what they’re making.
The agreements and defaults that arise in these conditions most often lead to art that, surprise surprise, feels like default art, built upon existing assumptions. This is the aspect of being a modern artist that I personally find the most difficult to navigate. Creative output is often described as content, but it’s always worth remembering that landfill is made up of content.
So I’d describe myself as a storyteller and musician who wants to create entertaining experiences that spark people’s minds, and move them emotionally. Crucially, I want to make stuff that is both useful and good, and not the cultural equivalent of landfill.
To learn as much as I can about creativity, I particularly like working within a wide spectrum of forms and ambitions: one day making something that might be seen by a hundred people at most, perhaps requiring a distinctive audience commitment; the next day, writing a script that might reach several million listeners, with a much simpler but no less rewarding invitation.
But generally, I most love allowing things to grow from seeds, rather than constructing from blueprints – and this can be a very tricky proposition in commercial contexts. Perhaps it’s my heritage as a musician. Very often musicians don’t know their destination; they discover what the music is in the act of making it. Screenwriters, on the other hand, are most commonly expected to say what something will be, and then write what they’ve said. I need to wire my brain very differently for each kind of work.
In the past it’s been tempting to think of this ‘wiring’ as a matter of one handy routing for commercial situations, and another for anything fully creative. But the more I jump from one kind of project to another, I’ve started to think of it as a spectrum of needs, a patchwork that’s subtly different for every application.
Perhaps we can describe this patchwork as ‘modules’ you can bolt together in different ways, to deal with the more mechanistic aspects of working in a product-driven world. Some modules are questions to yourself, others are statements or maxims. But they can all link in whatever configuration is most useful.
Module one: Analyse This.
It’s helped me over the years to think of making art in terms of two distinct mentalities: the creative, and the analytical. Of course this isn’t a new idea. Sister Clarita Kent, an arts teacher and thinker active in the last century, once drew up a set of rules for students and teachers that included “Do not try to create and analyse at the same time. They’re different processes.”
As a guideline (more than a rule, perhaps) this has saved me losing my marbles on plenty of occasions. I realised, for instance, that a huge part of what I’d once called writer’s block was instead a matter of me attempting to create and analyse simultaneously, to vicious circular effect. But if artists are being asked to create a product first and foremost – by definition, something that will serve a market – then the demand to analyse is constant, to think of impending results throughout.
The risk is we have generations of artists who have been taught not to embrace freedom and discovery, but to file and categorise their own work long before they’ve even stepped in front of the canvas, before they dream up a story, before their hands shape a single chord. Of course this makes the world a duller and less diverse place… but if you also want it put in capitalist terms, happy to oblige, here we go: it kills innovation. Absolutely fucking murders it, in cold blood.
So I’ve begun to assign roles to artistic tasks, to change my processes so that I’m very consciously either creating or analysing my work – even if those switches come rapidly, within a conversation, from one second to the next. The old joke is that as a writer I make up stuff that doesn’t exist, then other people tell me what’s wrong with it. I’m finding it life-affirming to divide my work so that creation is free, and safe – then any measurements have their own separate ‘room’ in my head.
Module two: What Hat?
Your identity is: artist.
(Which if you like can be swapped out for writer, actor, painter, poet, whatever suits you – but I’m sticking with the catch-all word artist here.)
You might at times also be artist-and-social-worker (which is the default state required of most publicly subsidised creatives in England at the moment.) You could also be artist-and-producer, or artist-and-investor, or artist-and-builder, etc… but this module operates on a spring mechanism that, upon the flick of a switch, returns your self-image to artist and artist alone.
At heart the job is one of imagination, dream, possibility, play. If you’re required to do anything else, it’s another line of work, wearing a different hat. Personally if I forget this for too long, I almost always end up feeling like I’m being asked to shatter my personality. Simple self-awareness really helps to keep me focused.
The demands of the creative industries make this a challenge, of course. Not least, constantly announcing I AM AN ARTIST, AN ARTIST GODDAMMIT out loud is likely to ring alarm bells – so for me this is largely, uh, an internal module. I know of a theatre and film director who has another way of putting it. Whenever undergoing some sticky professional negotiation, they always imagine they’re walking around with a sign on their back that says: YOU HIRED ME. Whatever your employers saw in you at the outset, it still applies, no matter how rugged the terrain since.
Next up, module 3: Noise Cancellation.
[to be continued]