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Why painting is a HAPPY thing (A very happy thing, indeed)

12/25/2019

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For some reason, swirling rainbows and smiles sparkling in the sunshine don’t seem to be as powerful images of painting or painters versus some super sad guy chopping off his ear and gifting it to a hooker.

It’s true, it hurts to paint, for a lot of reasons—there’s a lot of discipline and hard work involved. You work hard and long enough, you can get burnt out, and oftentimes, however hard you work, people don’t seem to appreciate what you create.

Yet in spite of all this (in the words of the immortal Mr Cougar Mellencamp), it hurts so good you can’t help but keep on painting. And when people think to ask you, it’s hard to explain why. Not that you’re obliged to, of course, but it helps to be able to articulate these things for the types who might ask why anyone would choose to be an artist in the first place.

So here are a few articulated reasons why painting is possibly one of the happiest things for mortals to do. (Why everyone doesn’t, in spite of these reasons, is another matter entirely, but I guess one could look at it as a, theme park, of sorts: You can’t get in unless you have a ticket, but once you do, you run wild, have fun and you don’t ever want to leave.)
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Get Your Second Wind: 10 Tips for Tackling Artist’s Burnout

8/17/2019

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​Ever been in that dilemma? When you have this insane allergy, but if you took an antihistamine, you’d get all sleepy, and you CAN’T get all sleepy because you have to work? Being burnt out, but unable to take time off is kind of like that.


Obviously, time off to decompress is the ultimate solution to the kind of chronic fatigue syndrome artists have, but there are times when there simply is no ‘next time’. Either you paint (or create) it now, or never. Well, maybe not never, ever, but, sometimes there’s just no moving a deadline and you have to make some hard choices.

Mind, this isn’t just me: I recently came across this article about how holidays, however much needed, just aren’t an option, sometimes for burnt-out professionals in the workplace.

So taking off from last month’s post about having ABS (not washboard but more like washout), I’ve got 10 suggestions that might help to tide you over. That is, until all the work is finished and ready for your (hopefully) adoring public.
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Got ABS (Artist’s Burnout Syndrome)? Time to stop working out, for a while.

7/12/2019

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We interrupt our purportedly regularly scheduled blog because it’s come to my attention that I might be burnt out.

Sometimes we’re aware of what’s going on—dimly, maybe, but still—but it never really comes home to you until somebody (often the last person you expect) spells it out for you in no uncertain terms.

Well, burnout happens. I have seen it happen to other people before; I guess I’m seeing it firsthand now, lol. Although I confess I didn’t think it would happen, to me or at least like this, or that things would come to such a pass.

Anyway for this ‘interruptablog’ (which I’m writing instead of the quick-start guide to acrylic like the one I did for oil which I’d thought I’d do since I’m acrylicking now), I’m going to go into ‘artist’s burnout’. Specifically, burnout in people who paint, sculpt…maybe musicians, poets, playwrights, thespians and makers of velvet flowers, too, I don’t know.
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Which means we’ll be looking at why you shouldn’t paint (or do art in general) when you’re tired, and how you know you’re burnt out.


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Inspiration is BS: Here’s What You REALLY Need to Create Great Paintings

6/16/2019

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So I’m ‘back in the saddle’, as it were—painting factory’s in full swing (at the time of writing). And having lived among humans for so very long, I’ve picked up the human habit of, well, looking for um, shall we say, sympathy or, support while I’m, you know. Painting factory-ing.

And while I was bending the unfortunate ear of one of my co-workers I was struck by something she said: ‘Oh no. You have to be super inspired to work on all that.’

Now, it’s not that I don’t appreciate her time or sympathetic ear. And, I am aware that most humans don’t ‘get’ what people like me do in our respective painting factories. In fact, I’m fairly sure that hadn’t been the first time I’d heard something to that effect. ​

However I would like to set something straight: thinking that artists live on inspiration alone is pure Bos taurus doodie.


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Newsflash: Art is, in fact, a ‘real job’.

4/2/2019

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One day about ten years ago I was on my way to work (I think this must’ve been the radio station, or the bank, I forget) after I’d gotten out of art school. I don’t remember why, but I stopped at a Pancake House where I ran into one of my (literally) old Fine Arts professors (God rest him). After I’d greeted him he was all

‘So, what are you doing now?’
‘Working, Sir.’
‘Of course, you would be.’

—which was as much as to say, ‘Of course you have a ‘real job’—your paintings suck, so you need one.’
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Can’t stand them? Can they stand you? Get pointers for getting along with artists, here.

2/27/2019

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Back at my first job, which was at an ad agency, I remember getting back to my cluster of cubicles one afternoon to find the cubicles across from mine in utter disarray. Chairs were upended with castors rolling in the air, paper flying every which where, and in the middle of that maelstrom was one of the creative directors.

I remember one of the secretaries leaning in to whisper, ‘Because he’s creative…’ Like that little phrase explained everything, like ‘being creative’ gave one the licence to throw a destructive hissy fit in the office.

I remember thinking to myself, ‘Well that ain’t right…’ I mean I was ‘creative’, but I didn’t think I’d get away with behaviour like that. Maybe because the guy was a big-shot CD and I was just a lowly newbie writer who was just happy to be there.

In any case, that incident stayed with me because I remember thinking that I didn’t want to be like that.​
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