Happy Friday, lovelies, and welcome to the first discussion-based Open Mic! Guest posts will return next week with some really beautiful graphic novel excerpts from Chad Sell, so be sure to come back on the 18th for those.
Today we’re trying something new: an open discussion! I have two questions for you, which I hope will serve to get us “introducing” ourselves in a more interesting way than standard introductions. (If you missed Wednesday’s post about responding even when you don’t like the questions, you might want to check it out before continuing!) This isn’t a test! The questions are here to give us a starting point and something to think about. If they don’t lead you anywhere, it’s up to you to lead them. 🙂
First: Imagine you get a chance to meet one of your favorite artists, in any field, living or dead. What’s more, you actually get to talk to them beyond that first thirty-second awkward gush of “Oh my gosh, I love your work!” What are you most burning to ask them — what intrigues you most about their person or their work — what is the single most important question you’d regret not asking them?
Articulate this question fully before moving on, so that my next question doesn’t influence your answer to this one.
Second: Imagine you are just walking around somewhere, and someone comes running up to you, all full of admiration and curiosity for you, and they ask you the same question you just asked your favorite artist. (Substitute specifics if you need to.) After you get over your initial shock at being approached in this way, how would you answer the question? Could you answer it? Do you wish you could give a different answer?
Go at it! Remember, the questions exist to serve you, so if they’re not doing so, turn them around and run with them however you please! I’ll chime in with my own answers at some point later, but don’t wait for me to get started. 🙂 I especially encourage you to talk to each other (as always, comments are threaded so you can reply to them individually) so we really have a conversation and not just individual posts.
Have fun!
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
Okay, question one…
Jim Woodring isn’t my number one favorite artist, but I absolutely love his work, and he was the first person who popped into my head, so what I’d like to ask him is…well, two things actually: 1) Is the persona you present in your blog posts, interviews, comics, etc. actually representative of who you are, or did you feel you had to build a weird character for yourself to go along with your incredibly surreal work? 2) I know this borderlines on one of those standard interview questions, but I honestly am dying to know: What does your typical work day look like?
Hmm…okay, to answer question two (ha! I totally would have answered the first differently had I read question two, so it’s good that you hid the rest of the post ;)) 1) It’s kind of strange to think of myself as creating a persona, but I suppose I do in a way. For one thing, I have much stronger political and general lifestyle views than I would ever reveal in any of my business-related online outlets, and I do know that I censor myself in response to the more conservative beliefs that many of my customers have demonstrated. 2) Okay, I’m boring myself with this question, but I really would have been interested in Woodring’s answer. 😉 My day involves waking up, going to yoga class, coming home and working until about 6:00, making dinner with my husband, and either working a bit longer (or a lot longer, if I’m in one of my workaholic phases) or winding down with a good book or movie. Yikes! I told you it was pretty blah. 😉
Hi Mo! Your question about personas and if they sometimes feel necessary, is one that I’ve been thinking about lately in regard to my blog. I want it to be true to who I am, but I’ve been trying to keep in mind that anything that a person ‘puts out there’ becomes a part of their ‘personal brand’, and is included in how they are percieved by others. I’ve been editing out a few choices of words — not because I want to be a goody-two-shoes, but because I’m increasingly aware of instances where using a different word won’t really change the meaning of what I’ve written. Yet, it will change how a certain person will experience it. Part of me notices and questions every time I do that (my own political spirit that yells out, “Don’t censor yourself!”) but I really don’t have a problem with it, if the spirit of the post doesn’t suffer for it. In terms of my stories, I leave in every word that my character would use in the situation, no matter what it is.
I like your typical work day! It’s not boring, it’s normal. Mine is boring!
I’ve thought some about how artists create this persona, too — Tiny Tim always fascinated me, since he really seemed to take himself quite seriously. Good questions!
Mo, your work day sounds lovely! And I appreciate your wondering about personas — I always have the same curiosity about people’s public persona versus the way they are at home or with friends.
And Ré, I’ve thought about it for my blog too. I think it helps that I’m naturally an oversharer (my mom had to tell me so many times when I was growing up, “we don’t tell people ____”) and that I’ve been blogging for a decade now, which has given me some experience with what and when to share. Like Mo, my political and general beliefs are much more radical than what might be immediately apparent upon reading my blog, but I think it’s also true that they occupy about the same percentage of my conversation in real life, so I’m not exactly censoring my normal speech. It’s more like my blog readers get a really good sense of my character, and there just might be some things about my life that they don’t know about — which is, I think, just right!
The artist I would choose, I don’t know if this is cheesy or trite or weird, but I’d like to talk to someone who did cave paintings in pre-history; some of those in the caves in France are particularly beautiful. I’d want to know more about why he or she did it, what it meant, who it was for, what god they represented or prayed to if that was the purpose…
I’m afraid I don’t really want to get to know more about anybody in particular, it’s more the mysteries they left behind, the unanswered questions. I feel like the artist’s work stands to some degree alone, it’s the context around it that needs filling in, and I don’t know that the creator is really the best source for that — how honest is she, how aware is she? What got in there that she didn’t realize, or what’s missing that she didn’t think to include?
For art to really appeal to me, then, it needs two things: a connection and context that is my responsibility to build around it, and an inherent beauty that exists without it. Beauty of form. It needs to be ugly enough to be beautiful, or scattered enough to be cohesive, but it needs to be one whole piece that speaks clearly. Not a purpose, really, but a selfness.
My question, then, to ask of this cave artist: What do you fear most?
I ask this because I think it reveals a lot about our struggles, our priorities.. how we think. We fear important things.
My answer: judgment. In all senses of the word. I fear letting others down, I fear getting my understanding of the world wrong, I fear creating something that someone else uses to harm others, I fear standing before god and being found wanting. I learned to let a lot of it go, to live with uncertainty, but occasionally I have to remind myself to do it.
I think this reveals my upbringing: as the son of a Norwegian Lutheran pastor, I grew up with programming that says, “Do your best always, but it will never be enough. Forgive and love others, but never expect it in return.” As a result I have lived in continual conflict with and a broader culture that rewards the opposite.. and the compromises I’ve made, when I managed to make them, were very difficult. I’ve had to learn to reprogram my values to allow for shades of grey. Life is a work in progress, but that is the interesting part 🙂
So my writing is actually one of these compromises. I had to give up the idea that these pieces had to be perfect before they went out, that they had to represent the very best I could produce, that they had to be morally responsible and contain truth. That way lies the perfect stillness of a funeral parlor; nothing can grow out of it.
Long-winded! Thanks for the questions eh 🙂
Hi, foldedflat! I’ve also wondered about those beautiful cave drawings, and what they meant to the ones who drew them. I agree that your question, “What do you fear most?” is an important one, and reveals much about an artist. I fear using bad judgement, but I get angry when I’m unfairly judged by others. I’m mostly afraid of repression and oppression — ever since childhood when I discovered what they meant.
I need to ask you what you mean by ‘truth.’ I only ask because I’m also trying to give up a lot of the same kinds of repressive ideas about my writing, as the ones you mentioned, but I had to hold onto one core belief because I need a sort of guide to help me focus on the ‘show, don’t tell’ aspect. I’ve come to use the word ‘truth’ for that. For me, it means the basic emotional truth of my characters. Do I know who they are? Are they reacting according to their own personality type? Does the action or interaction I’ve written accurately show the truth of the character(s) and their situation? I needed this one easy to remember guide, because my editing process has continually shown me that lapses in these points are where I get into trouble. So what does ‘truth’ mean to you in regard to writing?
I think that the truth you’ve defined for your characters is a good one: it’s truth-to-self, internal coherence. I like your choice and agree that it’s worth pursuing this kind of honesty.
In this case, when I said gave up trying for “truth,” I meant (and communicated poorly) that I stopped demanding that my writing present a clear idea that cuts to the core of some important issue. Sort of an Aesop’s fable moral ending, “Here’s how it ought to be.” Needing that kind of message, for me, meant that I would start manhandling characters to arrive at my own ends instead of allowing the writing process to create new things. It was very insular and narcissistic the way I was doing it.
Foldedflat, I am totally charmed that you want to talk to the cave painters. I’ve always been curious about them too; I guess their mystery is a big part of their appeal. I always wonder what role those paintings played in their lives. Were they a regular thing, or a one-time whim? I’m just fascinated by cave people in general, too. I read a novel once that took place in the Stone Age and it was so interesting just to explore one person’s imagined interpretation of their world.
I hear you on the judgment. My family isn’t religious, but Chinese parents definitely raise their kids to be hyper-conscious of how their actions affect others, and since my parents are immigrants, I believe they’ve always been hyper-conscious of their own actions in a world that was unfamiliar (and perhaps hostile) to them. So I’ve always had that fishbowl feeling too, though not with the same moral overtones you describe in your upbringing.
You’re right that trying to force a moral on your stories leads to manhandling your characters, but I think that when we write, we do imbue our characters and our worlds with certain values (which may or may not be our personal values, but derive from them in some way). I don’t know if we could write stories with heart if we didn’t pour our own values into them. So your morals may find their way to the reader anyway. 🙂
These are amazing questions!
Because I’m the questioner, it turned out that I was asking about something that I hoped I could learn from, to help with my own art. At first, I kept thinking of “gushy” questions to ask the artist I decided on, but since I can only ask one, I wanted it to get to the heart of my curiosity. So here it is: If I met Sam Shepard, and he let me ask him one question, I’d ask, “Do you sit down to write a story or a play with a plan about where you want it to go, or do you start with an impression or one scene that you want to explore and just let it go where it takes you — and if you’ve done both, have they worked equally well for you?”
If someone asked me this question, my answer is that my impulse to write seems to need the impression or the one scene, because without that spark, the entire process feels like editing to me and I don’t feel good about it. It’s been hard for me to write if I start with a specific plan for a story. So far, I’ve never actually finished a story that had a plan. I also realize that my basic plan — beginning, middle and end — needs to be very simple or it’s too daunting. Now the character profiles — because they are mostly about emotions and how these people would react to what’s being thrown at them — can go pretty well, but they still don’t spark the need for a writing session. When I feel my ‘need’ to write, it comes either from a place of emotion inside me that has a visceral reaction to something, or it falls out of the sky and hits me on the head with a word, a phrase, a paragraph, or a dream that needs to be written down. I think that’s why I’m anxious to put this last story to bed, so to speak — so I can sit down unencumbered and try to plan a new short story, and wrestle it to the ground. I want to have this skill as a tool for when I need it, but I won’t know if I can cultivate it until I have the time and space to try.
Thanks for these questions, Lisa! I’m chomping at the bit to hear more responses!
Yay Ré, I’m so glad these questions got you thinking! Your writing spark sounds a lot like what Stephen King describes in On Writing. He said that his favorite way to write (he might have even said it’s the only way he can write) is from a situation, some setup that gives him a strong feeling of wanting to know what happens next. Everything else comes from that.
I think that method works well for me too. At any rate, that “visceral reaction” you describe seems to be the key. Whatever I’ve written that has come from a colder and more distant genesis, hasn’t persisted in my mind. The ideas that stay with me — that I think about even when I’m not actively working on those pieces — are the ones that really resonate with me.
Q: i’ve slept with too many artists i admired to admire artists like i used to. I’m disillusioned. How do you remain authentic? How do you remain faithful to art? Do you care?
A: i create things that make people dislike me. Sometimes i care so much i feel like i’m creating for the chip on my shoulder.
~anna
P.S. Thanks for the great questions Lisa!
Thank you so much for joining the discussion, Anna! Wow, your question really hit me hard — it’s so emotionally direct. I wonder. When I’ve gotten disillusioned it’s been so strong, I don’t know that a single answer could get me out of it. Distance helps, new perspective helps, but I don’t know if there’s one thing that anyone could say that would help.
Does it work, creating things that make people dislike you? Or does anxiety about authenticity remain?
It doesn’t work. You create art to remain authentic, the struggle to remain authentic compromises your art… i don’t think there’s an endpoint. This irony is “the process” and in some ways it’s all that matters. In other ways it renders the whole exercise meaningless.
Such is life, i guess.
Thanks for the discussion Lisa.
~anna
Thank you for being a part of it. 🙂 I guess there’s always tension in art-making, and a lot of good stuff comes out of it, but a lot of despair too.
[…] quite a conversation going on this weekend at Satsumabug’s art blog! Lisa’s Open Mic Friday feature (which goes on all weekend and beyond so don’t worry […]
I think for me, the most burning question I have for successful, accomplished artists is: before you had recognition, while you were knee deep in your ambitious graphic novels (or whatever), still shaping the style and narrative that you would later be renowned for, how did you keep moving ahead, keep innovating, and keep your spirits up?
Also: how can I be famous? : )
If someone asked me the same thing, I’d definitely have some good suggestions, but that’s what I was hoping to address in next week’s open mic ; )
Chad, I totally, totally second your questions — both of them. 🙂 As I said in my own comment below. 🙂 I can’t wait to read your thoughts next week!
Very interesting questions. First of all it’s highly possible that my answers are being influenced by my current state of mental pondering. If I saw these questions maybe 7 years ago my answer would be completely different. Right now I am trying to get back into a state of artistic inspiration so I think my answer will reflect that. Now onto my answers (or maybe my non-answer of your questions.)
There are lots of artists I really love and I can’t really pinpoint who would be my favorite, because it jumps between too many genres and timeframes historically. And don’t even let me jump between every art medium that exists because then I’d have to contend with music, theater, architecture, and so on and so on. So to make answering this easier for me I think I’d like to maybe focus on painters. And even narrowing it down to them, I really wouldn’t want to miss out on talking to Leonardo Da Vinci because Salvador Dali was the first person available to answer questions. (You know the dead artsits are always walking around in such a rush right after they leave Starbucks. It’s hard to catch them.) Anyway so I’m finding it difficult to single out a specific question to ask of just one artist. I can see myself asking specific questions about certain pieces of work like asking what they were trying to get across on a certain painting or drawing. Maybe I’d ask how they go just the right angle without smudging. But those are the technical questions and they could be asked of any artist who has copied the artist’s style.
So I was wondering if I’d want to ask political questions of the artist or something about their social viewpoints. But then I thought is that really what I’m the most intrigued with about that particular artist. Will knowing what they thought about the ruling regime or what they thought about society something that I wouldn’t already gotten a sense of from viewing their work? I’m not sure, but what I truly would really want to gain from this chance meeting, that I was graced with, would be an experience. I would want to experience their inspiration, their aura of creativity. So suddenly I don’t really have a question as much as I want to have that artist exchange of thoughts and ideas. I would love to maybe create art with them, maybe be their protégé for a day. Missing them in the state of creation would be something that I would regret never having experienced if I’d have the chance.
But I really don’t think that would work out because some of the really great artists are not the most personable people. They might be a bit arrogant. Or on the other side they could take me for some weird obsessed lunatic and try to get me to leave them alone. I tend to have a very different temperament though. So now let me think of myself as the artist. What would my reaction be?
Uh, I think you have me confused with someone else. Well, I guess you do have the right person. Now, where did you see my work? Really, I did not know they had that painting up there. Well thank you I’m flattered. I guess I could chat for a bit. Wait, you want to watch me paint something? Um okay that’s a bit of pressure. It usually takes me a few days to be finished with a piece. Why do you want to watch me do this? Oh and you want to paint with me also like a collaborative piece? Hmmn, I guess that would be kind of cool. Okay well let me check my planner and see when I’m free. Are weekends good for you? Let me write this down, hold my Starbucks cup for a sec while I find a pen.
Ah wishful thinking at it’s best. Thanks Satsumabug for the interesting questions!
Angela, thank you so much for visiting and joining the discussion! I love your vivid response (the last paragraph with the Starbucks cup); it made me smile. And your idea of working with a great artist — of getting to know them from the side of hands-on experience — is a fabulous one. That would be really interesting, and would probably teach us a lot even if we felt like terrible amateurs and complete nuisances the entire time!
If you rediscover your “state of artistic inspiration” and paint anything you’d like to share on the Open Mic, I could feature you as a guest post sometime. 🙂
I’m loving all your responses! Here are mine.
I’m never sure who my favorite artists are, when asked, but Marjane Satrapi comes instantly to mind as someone I’d like to talk to, because of the parellels between her work and my family history project. My question to her would be, “What were your biggest mental obstacles in creating Persepolis (the work for which you became well-known)?” This question is closely related to Chad’s question above, and, is really also my way of asking Chad’s second question, “How can I be famous?” Because yes, although I am intellectually interested in knowing the challenges that face artists, deep down what I really want is a magic formula: “How did you go from zero to somebody, and can you tell me how to do it too?”
As for me, if someone were to ask me what my biggest mental stumbling blocks are, they boil down to just doing the work. Over time I have learned to work with off-days and with self-doubt, but honestly, my biggest issue is still just ignoring distractions and getting to work. It makes me feel like such a loser sometimes, that there is this apparently ginormous invisible wall between me and the work, and much of the time I can’t seem to get myself over it.
If I were reading my own question and answer, I’d crinkle my face and say, “Wait… but your original question wasn’t about how to make yourself work. If that’s what bothers you so much, why didn’t you just ask that instead?” I know why: it’s because I’m embarrassed, because I have this image of published authors as these incredibly productive people who never ever have trouble pulling themselves away from Minesweeper and toward the blank page. In my mind, successful artists are so far removed from this problem that it would be offensive for me to even talk to them about it: it’d be like approaching Thomas Keller and asking him how to get over an addiction to instant ramen and frozen dinners. Well, if he’s a nice guy, maybe he’d really be interested in the problem and would try to help. Maybe I shouldn’t be so embarrassed about my question… maybe if I ever am in an elevator with a famous artist, I should ask them how they get to work every day.
I think that is a completely valid question for a great artist, because artists create their own work from idea, beginning, to end. They don’t have a specific job description spelled out for them on paper by an employer, or on-the-sales-floor coaching (like I did at my cosmetics sales job.) There’s no nine-to-five, “I’ll work on this until the ten o’clock meeting, make some calls to clients after lunch, and then amend some of the key points in the Bates contract… ” How does one handle creative conflict when it’s in your own head and you can’t take it to your supervisor? How do they keep work related distractions from leading to just plain old distractions? I’d like to know that myself.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you think it IS creative conflict inside, that makes it hard to get down to business sometimes? I think I’m often overwhelmed with the creative decision between this and that, the forks in the road so-to-speak. Is the creating harder for you too, when it all starts to feel like editing? Or does it ever feel that way to you?
Thank you for the validation, Ré. 😀 I appreciate it! You’re right, part of the excitement and struggle of doing our own work is not having that outside-imposed structure, or the rule book, or the training. Since I never went through any kind of art school or MFA program, I’ve always wondered whether that’s something they teach you there… but I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t. I love how you say “forks in the road” because it does often feel like that. I think a lot of the time it is internal creative conflict or self-doubt that stops me from working, and other times it’s lack of prioritizing — not truly seeing computer games as less important than writing, for instance!
I did think about this over the weekend because I procrastinated on starting my valentine, and I think it’s because I didn’t know what I was going to draw at first, and that translated into my unconscious mind as “so you won’t make anything good and there’s no point even trying.” Of course, this was buried so deep I had no idea I was even thinking that, but afterward I realized that was what was preventing me from getting to the sketchbook.
My guess is that most successful artists totally feel the same difficulty that you (Lisa) do too, in terms of getting yourself to launch yourself onto a blank page and get to work. However, I’d guess the more prolific artists and writers have gained a certain degree of self-awareness to the point that they know how to counter the inhibiting influence of distractions or self-doubt.
I’m getting there, gradually. For me, the greatest way to overcome writer’s block is to go take a walk, though I think you’ll find many other creative types offering the same suggestion ; )
Thank you, Chad! It’s really reassuring to think it’s not only my problem because I’m “not successful yet.” 🙂 I think you’re right too, about prolific artists figuring out how to get themselves over these distractions. I know for sure I’m learning this for myself; I’m much better at not getting off track now than I used to be!
Walking is so good. 🙂 And cooking, actually. I just read a wonderful essay by a journalist who writes about international violence and conflict, tough subjects that she often isn’t sure how to tackle when she starts to write. The essay was about all the various recipes that have gotten her through tough times, and she tied particular recipes to particular eras/places. I loved it.
Thanks for this prompt Lisa, and it’s great to read what others have written!
I decided to address my questions to Romare Bearden (http://www.beardenfoundation.org/index2.shtml) an American artist – I saw his exhibition in San Francisco MOMA a few years ago and have been hooked on his work ever since! I wanted to ask him three (rather binary) questions;
1. What inspired your best art; adversity or contentment?
2. Can you separate politics and art?
3. Art:- an art or a science?
My answers to these would be:
Adversity often provides the impetus or the material for my writing, but contentment gives me the space in which to write.
I can’t separate politics and art, I like think of myself as a Renaissance Woman. To me, everything is pretty much interconnected; we make distinctions to help us conceptualise and comprehend the world, but the connections are there if we look hard enough, or if we stop looking hard enough.
Writing is both an art and a science – the craft and the graft make the bones of the piece you are writing, but the art; the unquantifiable moment where your work touches someone and makes them feel connected to you and your writing, that’s the blood and the flesh.
Oooh, fascinating questions and answers, Clare! I’d add to your #1 that I have a similar relationship between enjoyment and dislike. I find it’s always energizing to experience something I don’t enjoy, because in articulating what it is I dislike and how I’d change things, I discover new things and areas unexplored. On the other hand, when I was in grad school I think I defined my voice primarily through what I was not, and it’s only recently (when I’ve become happier and more comfortable) that I feel more at ease to let my voice speak for itself without having to be against something or in opposition to other people.
[…] Happy first Friday of March, my dears! Welcome to the second discussion-centered Open Mic. The first one was so much fun, I am looking forward to another weekend filled with your insightful comments and […]
[…] Friday, wonderful readers, and welcome to our third discussion-based Open Mic! Join in the conversation at any time during the weekend, and invite your friends — […]