5 Things You Need to Be 'Fit for Art’

Being super fit isn't usually the first thing that comes to mind when we talk about what you need to be if you want to become an artist. That's usually an issue for like athletes, dancers, mountain climbers, or ultimate fighters.

But folks who sit down at an easel or a desk to paint? Not really, right?
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And yet, making art can be incredibly, physically demanding.

Maybe people don't usually think about the toll art can take on your physical wellbeing, but I’ve personally known artists who've gotten sick, injured or both while on duty in their respective painting factories. And the fact is, some of us do have trouble staying in good enough shape sometimes to finish whatever it is we need to finish.

Now look, this isn't a blog about a healthy lifestyle or tips to be, whatever ~ I'm like the LAST person on EARTH to have even the tiniest fraction of the right to write something like that.

But I'll probably be one of the first to tell anyone that being an artist isn't something you take for granted ~ physically. You know, I told a young artist that recently, something like, ‘Why do you want to be an artist? It’s bad for your health,’ to which she replied, ’All professions are bad for your health.’

I’m not saying they’re not, nor am I saying becoming an artist is somehow special or whatever because it’s extra *life-risky* or something. That said, all I can say is that if staying healthy ranks high on your priority list, you just might have to make a few adjustments depending on how serious you are about your practice.
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I'm also not saying you can't do art and stay healthy at the same time. ​

Like I've also known, one or two folks who take precautions like wearing gloves when they paint (and not just because of their nails ^^) or really just not pushing past what their bodies are no longer able to handle. I knew one who gave up paint for a bit and just drew or something because she didn’t fancy being around the chemicals.

One of my favourite sopranos, Mirella Freni? My memory's not the best but I have a vague memory of her saying once that she wouldn't do Queen of the Night cos she knows her limits, or something like that.

In any case, for me, I've always thought to H-E-Double Toothpicks with that ~ if you don't, like, put your body on the line for the thing you want then maybe you don't want it enough! You know?

It's only when I got old that I had no choice but to make like Mirella LOL
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5 Things To Ask the Art Genie For ​

Instead of maybe talking about what can happen to you, because I remembering writing about accidents or injuries here on the jillablog before, I thought I’d share a few *super powers* or physical attributes you’re going to need IF you're crazy enough to want to *art* for the long term.

(Believe it or not, I actually looked up one or two definitions for this, so if your genie says you only get three? You can probably combine two or more of these (and maybe have one left over for more wishes lol)
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1. Stamina

I've been talking about stamina a lot lately (the same way I talk about plant burgers in the middle of the night and wonder whether delivery riders worked graveyard).  When I first thought of writing about this, Dwyvach the Weaver Woman from the Chronicles of Prydain loomed large in my memory. Now that Dwy and I are about the same age, I’ve made her my poster girl for studio work.

"...Dwyvach, despite her years, could work faster, longer, and harder than he himself. At the end of each day Taran's eyes were bleary, his fingers raw, and his head nodded wearily; yet the old weaver-woman was bright and spry as if the day had scarce begun."  (Lloyd Alexander, Taran Wanderer (1967)
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2. Endurance

So I had to look up how this was different from stamina because in remembering Dwy, I remembered thinking how I ‘should've reached that level of endurance by now’ ~ and then I wondered if they were the same thing.

Apparently there’s a whole rabbit hole about the differences that wiser heads than mine have dug over this, so lazy jill’s just gonna go with How Stuff Works explains it: stamina is about how long you can give it all you got, and endurance is how long you can keep going before you fizzle out. (I hope I got that right lol)

Because I gotta tell ya, painting or drawing, even a single piece (let alone a series, like for a show, or a book) is a marathon, not a sprint. And I'm ashamed to say I’ve always been more of a Taran than a Dwyvach at nightfall which is when the painting factory really opens for business.

I had also hoped that being at Dwy’s level would've meant being able to stretch an all-nighter without an artist's best friend ~ I'm wondering now whether I'd only dreamed of having done that a few years back because it sure seems impossible now.
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3. Strength

Well, having gone down that rabbit hole, I of course was compelled to look up how stamina was different from strength. Apart from ‘that thing Superman has a lot of’ lol I couldn’t dig up any ‘dumbed down for jill’ definitions except this one which (in jillinese) is basically how much force you can exert at one time.

(So, if I got that right, strength is how much at one time, stamina is all you got for how long, and endurance is how long you can until you run out.)

And while lifting a pencil or a paintbrush doesn’t quite compare to bench pressing like Jimmy Kolb, you also need to be pretty strong to do art ~ how strong depends on what you're doing, exactly. I mean, you'll probably need more physical strength to whang a chunk of marble or wood than maybe do pointillism with a 0.1 tip pen.

But regardless of your medium, there can also be a lot of straight up hefting involved, whether that’s canvas (of whatever size), or even paper.

Sounds funny, I know, but paper can be heavy if it's of a certain weight and size and if you're stretching it. Even if you take it off the plywood, stack a few 600-gsm’s and those can weigh something even if you put nothing but watercolours or watered down acrylic on them.

You’ll also need to be strong enough to use your tools safely. Things like hammers, or, anything with a blade, or maybe a blowtorch if you're doing that kind of sculpture ~ and even if the tools (like canvas stretching pliers) are meant to relieve you of some of the weight or pressure.

And having mentioned tools, this reminds me of technique, which, in turn, reminds me of another one of my *book friends*, Maximilian Morrel. Max was an experienced soldier (Captain of Spahis, no less) described in Count as ‘being graceful in every movement because he was strong’.

In the context of this post, this reminds of me of huge, single-stroke paintings like this one by Wolfgang Semmelrock. You do need to be strong, after all, to be graceful or to make a graceful, controlled movement (ask any dancer you please).
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4. Mobility

I mentioned pointillism a while back, which again, may not seem like you need to be able to do the Iron Man triathlon for. But for that kind of thing, your fingers will need to be able to survive being curled up round a pen, or a brush, or a knife handle, or whatever your tool of choice is, for hours and hours on end.


Well you can take breaks and all that, whatever works for you. But some of us will have to keep that sort of thing up for a stretch, and won't exactly be, like, jumping up after just a few minutes at a desk yelling tada! brandishing a miraculously finished piece.


So the good, old-fashioned dictionary definition of mobility is the capacity for free and easy movement ~ something you take for granted until you’re old like jill and your fingers and knees start locking up from sitting and picking at your work until you lose all sense of time and then suddenly you need to pee ^o^;

Again, depending on the tools, medium, and technique that you use, some of us might develop the kind of injuries you'd expect athletes to develop. Like when you cover a large area with a wash or energetic repetitive strokes long enough and before you know it, your wrists or elbows are killing you.

Jackson Pollock, for instance, walked around bent over and dripped and flung paint as he worked (bet that guy was limber ^^). And if you have big works you may have to climb up and down a ladder and be able to balance or not fall off scaffolding.  Paint on your feet all night long and soon your feet will kill you, too.

5. Tolerance

Hardiness was the other word I had in mind for this, because if you say immunity it’s kind of like resistance against germs (I’m no med student, but you know what I mean ^^).

If you remember I mentioned chemicals earlier in this post, and I mention tolerance here because some of us will also need to be able to withstand exposure to chemicals and the fumes that come with. Same goes for dust or significant amounts of small fibres depending on the materials you use or you happen to be sanding or something.

Again, you can crack a window, switch on a fan, or strap on a mask, but these kinds of things may not be for folks with asthma or sensitivities to certain smells. I may have mentioned on the jillablog about how I used to drive Mom nuts with the reek of my solvents, and I remember my brother getting sick from the fibres and soldering gun smells from my school projects, too.

Exposure to paint, solvents, and chemicals might also be a not-so-good idea for folks with sensitive skin. Yet again, you can wear gloves and all that; me, personally I need to be able to glomp whatever I'm working with; gloves generally aren't for me ^^

LOL I remember when I was in my early 20s, before I went to art school, I had a bottle of paint thinner for my hands ~ that drove my teacher nuts and she was all what are you DOing that is so not safe! (And that reminded me of when I was about 12, the teachers at the classes I was taking then were using kerosene or gasoline as an oil painting medium) (yes, it smelled lovely).

Of course there are solutions like Grumtime (don't laugh, but this is a certified 100 per cent nostalgic smell for me), or, you could just do water-soluble paint, but, yeah. Point being there are myriad options for the plethora of smells you may have to live with ^o^

Bonus no. 6: ENERGY

So if strength is the noun for strong, there’s no real ‘noun equivalent’ for being energetic, because, well ‘energy’ does rather sound like wind farms and solar panels, doesn’t it ^^ Plus, if I had said ‘liveliness’, for me it speaks more to the personality of the artist rather than the physicality of creating art.

I mentioned strength because I thought being energetic was the same thing. But I guess it is true that you can have a lot of energy for working on your art and still not be able to lift a 48-can case of Red Bull.

Because there’s all that heavy duty stuff you wish (or well, *I* wish LOL) you could just make your studio assistant take care of. Things like cleaning your palette, your brushes, your knives, washing your plywood, stretching your paper, priming and edging your canvas, wrapping paintings for transport ~

~ All that stuff takes a whole lot of energy. Well, this could be the senior citizen in me talking, but all this did wipe me out too when I was younger, possibly because I wasn't getting a whole lot of sleep ^^
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Well, we all know about sleep ​

(Public enemy no. 1 of this artist LOL). But I know that you know, some of us do need to be Vulcans sometimes. (‘I am not hungry, Doctor. And under stress, we Vulcans can do without sleep for weeks.’ (Spock, Paradise Syndrome, Star Trek TOS, Season 3)

On that note, I guess, I’d like to finally wrap up this month’s musings by saying, again, don’t take your body for granted when making art. I’m pretty sure I’ve said here time and again that art is a mind game, but now that my own body seems to be giving way, I’m compelled to admit that it’s a game your body has to play, too.

So unless you can transplant your brain into an android body that lasts up to 500,000 years on Mudd’s planet, best you take care of yours! Or at least, enough care to finish the magnum opus you’re working on (because you are the only one who can really finish your work) ~ Good luck <3
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