Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art Works

A recipe for chaos.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

A fellow art friend from college, Ali LaRock, currently has an exhibit in Bismarck. She is sharing the show with Gretchen Bederman.

Since I'm here in Bismarck, I'm thinking of taking it in next week. I wasn't able to make the opening reception or gallery talk, but I'd like to see her stuff up on the walls and in a different context than I've seen it previously. The show is called "A Recipe for Chaos" and is through the Bismarck Art and Galleries Association. I'd link you to some relevant page on their site, but all the links go to some wacky format which seriously needs to be changed to make their web site more user -riendly.

I haven't had a gallery show for years.

I sort of grew tired of the whole gallery thing.

Generally, it was marked by bad cheese, thick eyeglass frames, pinky-up swilling wine, and disinterest beyond the same handful of people.

It costs a lot to put up a show. Framing is costly, not to mention other incidentals which quickly add up and make it economically ludicrous (unless you sell a lot of work, which, since I'm unwilling to put deer in my art, I don't here in North Dakota). I understand it's more about exposure, in some sense, but I guess if I was so interested in that I could just stand on the side of the I94 and lift my shirt.

I think I can safely say that everyone potentially involved in such a scenario is happy I'm not doing that.

Labels: art life

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Ye olde artiste statement.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

My friend is having some difficulty with her artist statement.

I hate artist statements. Are there accountant statements? Doctor statements? Shouldn't we have an explanation for what the reasoning behind the charges of the average doctor's visit is? Why do artists have to give statements?

It sounds like something from Law and Order. "You need to give me your statement now."

I suggested a fairly simple statement for her to use: “I like dogs. I also like clay. Everything else is natural.”

Short and sweet. She came up with a pretty good one, though, without my help.

But artist statements. Ugh.

I have an "artist statement" but I prefer to call it a mission statement because I, like the Blues Brothers, am definitely on something.

Once, back in one of the earlier versions of this site, I had this to say about that:

We're all taught in art school to have an artist statement, or a mission statement laying out in words what it is our work was to accomplish, where our inspiration came from, yada yada yada. I'd go to the senior shows and read some of the statements with a bit of horror, realizing that I wasn't nearly as lofty in my goals or methods. It's like an artist piling dirt on the floor and saying in his mission statement that he wanted to bring attention to the plight of Vietnamese boat people. All I saw was a pile of dirt, and I wondered who'd get stuck cleaning it up. My mission statement is straightforward (I hope) because my work is what it is.

Sometimes I use green in my paintings because I have lots of green paint to use up. Sometimes it's to symbolize life. Sometimes I spilled paint or dropped a brush on the board. Sometimes I think, "Hey. Green. Neat." Not terribly romantic, and fairly disappointing for the customer who really could care less about the image but is more interested in buying into the Oprahfication Art Gobbledy Gook myth that allows a towel rack to be nailed to a board and sold for $20,000 in some gallery.

I don't think if you lack a super-fab artspeak statement that you're going to end up the Art World's Corey Feldman. You just won't be allowed to wear a beret.

I also included a handy list of words to avoid using in an artist statement because they carried a high risk of making your reader vomit:

self-taught (Learned your art on your own, but had to be potty trained. Yahoo.)
heartfelt (Good to know you're not whoring yourself to make money only.)
spirit (Oh, please.)
essence (Also works great on a decorative candle label.)
dialogue (Hey. Try the word "talk.")
capture (What is this, The Fugitive meets artist effort?)
primitive (Unless you've whipped up a few Venus of Willendorf's, lay off the claim.)
yearning (Brings to mind a constipated person on the toilet.)
evocative (Half of the country can't pronounce the word. They think it's associated with pornography.)
"I strive" (I think we can all see that you're at least "striving.")
catalyst (Brings to mind things like "Dr. Frankenstein" and "frog dissection.")
intended vision (Seems a little apologetic, using the word "intended." As in, "I intended to draw well, but instead I bombed.")

I then ended it with this:

mission statement: cliff notes version
I draw what I know. I'm not trying to make social or political statements. I make stuff that I like.

I was told I shouldn't use the word "stuff" in such a statement, as that was not a professional response.

Whatever.

Labels: art life

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Google pages.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I'm having a lot of fun tweaking my free Google pages web site. You can see it here. I haven't got a clear idea of what I want to do there, but I have a sense of it being kind of like the "extra" file on my desk, the file where I throw in all kinds of random ideas that I may want to use later but that I definitely don't want to throw or mix in with the "serious" files. So, stuff I don't want on my main Lone Prairie site I could mix and mash over there.

I'm not sure.

Google has provided lots of easy to use templates, with an interface that is similar to all of the free services they now offer (Google docs, etc.) so, if you're using those, it should seem familiar to you whether or not you're up on web site creation or not.

Google has made it so you can also include Google gadgets, tweak the HTML to your own liking, and manage your page(s) easily from the dashboard.

If you're a writer or artist and need a quick web site just to refer people to, or perhaps just to get your feet wet on the internet, you might want to check it out. I could think of lots of ways this could be useful. It's much better than the early years of Geocities and those free sites.

Labels: art life, internet, writing life

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The Everything Group, for the right brained.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

I've got to stop joining reading and writing groups. I'm never satisfied.

Perhaps it's just a glorified wish of wanting to be part of a group of people who enjoy art, music, writing, reading and film. The common denominator in the reading group and the writing group which I have been dissatisfied with is...me. I can tell you all the things I didn't like about each group, but really, I can only change myself and I was the one who was part of both groups.

I'll use the writing group as an example, since I've long since abandoned the reading group.

For me, writing isn't about grammar, publishers, and novels. Writing is like art, like music, like reading -- it is an essential part of being for me; they are all in connection with each other. They are symbiotic, they feed each other and, if I try to separate one from the other, they all suffer. I need to be able to write to draw to write. It is not necessarily a career, but a way of existing. The writers' group seems only focused on writing as a career, with the goal of being published.

That, of course, makes sense. What else would a writers' group be for?

And that's why I know I just can't go anymore.

I used to enjoy talking with a former member (who no longer attends) about interesting books or things he'd found, because it gave me ideas of things to both read and write about. I feel his absence markedly. A huge frustration for me in both groups, the writing group in particular, has been a distinct feeling of square peg in round hole. I notice it more, now, with the absence of this member.

The last writers' group meeting found me without any writing sample to hand out though I dare say I write enough on all of my blogs to fill several books. Instead, I offered a handout with some web links and a few ideas that people might find helpful only to have it barely glanced at (except by one person) and essentially shrugged off. It may not have been a stellar source of information, but to have to put up with 15 minutes of discussion prior to that, about getting a person in to teach grammar as our special speaker, and not get any similar interest (feigned or otherwise) back from what I had to offer...

And then I handed out one of the cartoons I'd drawn for a comic book I'm attempting to put together. It may have seemed odd to hand out "drawings" at a writing group, but in my mind...it's all connected. It's writing, to me. The cartoons have scripts that I work through. I did preface it by saying my sense of humor was odd and they probably wouldn't get it. I wasn't too concerned about all of that, nor am I terribly thin-skinned about "critique." (You don't go through five years of art school without learning how to handle the critique of your work.) I was attempting to show the writing I was working on, even if it contained drawings.

"These cartoons are kind of like a seriously pared-down, edited story," I explained. "I only have about four to six panels to get the story across, and my dialog is obviously limited." I handed out the drawing.

It was quickly passed around the table and literally tossed carelessly back at me by a member. My reaction to that was of annoyance. I was annoyed at the disrespect showed to another person's work, not that they weren't fawning about the cartoon (frankly, they're weird humor that few people will laugh at) but apparently the annoyance was misconstrued at not being able to handle critique.

"I can handle a critique just fine," I said, carefully putting the original drawing back in the folder case, further annoyed that it was suggested I couldn't take critique even though I'd been part of this group longer than all but one other person there. "This is an original drawing and I don't appreciate you throwing it about the table."

We moved on with the rest of the meeting, but at that moment I knew I was done with the group. I very much like the people, but I do not fit with them as an "official" group, a group with a purpose.

Frankly, I don't mind not fitting.

I want to be part of group that isn't so narrow. I want to be part of a group where, if someone writes something personal that makes them cry, it doesn't have to be awkwardly sandwiched between the discussion of getting a speaker to come and talk about grammar, and a critique on writing. I want to be able to talk about a book in broad terms without falling into pointless discussions on child daycare and side-tracked conversation more befitting a Ladies' Aid meeting. I want to be part of a group where we bring things we're doing -- reading, writing, drawing -- an Everything Group.

Come to my Everything Group, the imaginary poster might say, We encourage you to be and do. If you're doing it, creating it, we welcome it.

Do you like to write? Bring your writing! Have a book or film you are dying to talk about? Let's talk about it. Really into art? Great. Got a thing for music? Come on down. Want help with motivation for your art, writing, journaling, music, or reading? That's why we're here.

A Jack-of-all-Trades group. A Renaissance Man group. A Creative Thinker group. An Aimless Wanderer With Lots of Thoughts group. A Group Without A Traditional Means to an End group.

A group where it wasn't about grammar and systems and how-to, but encouragement and creativity and, essentially, right-brain focus. A group where people who write are encourage to let it pour out without ever feeling like they have to make it a career, where people who read can gush and recommend and talk about a book, where people who have found some great new music can tell the rest of the members, where people who have an artistic streak can let it out before they explode.

Something like that.

I don't know if I'd get anyone to show up.

We humans like orderly specifics, it seems, rather than such "vague without purpose" activity.

But it'd still be cool.

Labels: art life, writer's group, writing life

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Quiz: How not to respond.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

If an artist throws you, also an artist or apparent patron of the arts, a link, how should you respond?

a) Thanks for the link!

b) Thanks for the link...I appreciate it. There's an error in your post, though. Just thought I'd let you know. But thanks for the link!

c) I saw that you linked to my post. Thanks! I like your site.

d) Respond like "Scatt" did in the comments in this earlier post of mine.

I'm fairly unimpressed with this person, though I have decided to leave the post and link as is for the benefit of fellow artists and readers who may still be interested in the materials available. I don't generally delete or alter posts beyond an "update" notation out of a kind of preservation of the archives, or, at least, not appearing dishonest.

I'd recommend, in the future, that if you run a site and for some reason find the need to "reprimand" the person giving you a link, rethink that course of action. I'm not sure why a person sees a battle where there is none, nor why they chose to dump on another person's benign web site.

Scatt will no longer have comments published on this blog. And for any other readers or web site owners looking to nit-pick, please visit my other blog, in which I regularly rip new ones, quite well, for whoever would like it to be done.

Labels: art life, links

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Sketchbook examples online.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

I found a great site that listed an incredible amount of sketchbooks that you can view online, from well-known artists to artists like myself.

The first thing I noticed was that my name did, indeed, have a listing there, though the link is for an old page that no longer exists. My new sketchbook repository is found here. The second thing I noticed was that I didn't have a red dot next to my name, which meant it wasn't considered a "highly recommended link."

After getting done pouting, I checked out some of these sketchbook links. A few were dead links, but many were good.

I really needed that kick in the pants. I need to be sketching more. Nothing deep here, in this post, beyond a "I need to be sketching more."

Related links:

Artist's sketchbooks

UPDATE: Please read here for further discussion regarding the comments below.

Labels: art life, journals, links, sketchbooks

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Facing up to self-portraits.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

How do you go through life disliking a functional and non-deformed object attached to the top of your body which everyone sees? It is very difficult.

When nearly all of the family was home recently, and people were seeing me with all of my siblings after all this time, they made comments on how I looked like them or like my grandma -- things like that. My first reaction was sadness to my siblings or relatives that were being compared to me.

"You look like your sister Janet!" they might say, to which I would respond by promptly turning to Janet and saying "I'm sorry."

That's sick.

But I don't like my face.

My face is more than a list of current blemishes, crooked eyebrows, pointy eyeteeth, weird cheeky-cheeks-upon-cheeks, double chins, half dimples -- it's more than that. The same for anyone out there doing the same thing to themselves (and I know you're out there!) -- the face is a kind of alive thing and I always find that, in person, people are nothing like a dead photo.

But...I hate trying to do self-portraits, because I sort of nearly hate my face.

I groan when I think of the stupid self-portraits all the instructors kept trying to make me do when I was in college. I managed to either paint myself partially hiding behind objects, or draw something entirely non-human and BS my way through it with enough art-speak to confuse even the most ludicrous performance artist.

When Sabine was visiting from Germany this past week, I let her go through my art and take a bunch. She pulled one from the pile that she liked and asked me what it was.

"It looks like shells," she said. "There are different -- what is that, faces? -- inside the shells."

"It is. Actually, it was a self-portrait."

She looked at me strangely.

"I hate doing self-portraits, so I made this. I was trying to say that we all live in some kind of shell, and so the larger shell has all those other people's faces in it. This shell over here, by itself, is me. That's my obscured face inside that shell. Not only am I in a shell like the rest, but I'm not even with the rest."

"Julie..."

"Bah. I don't like looking at myself and drawing myself. So I did these assignments with fairly wide and farcical interpretations. Ah, forget about it. That drawing is eleven years old. Take it."

But tonight, I was looking over my list of personal goals and the many "to-do" lists I have. Two seemed to say that they belonged with each other:

start doing self-portrait sketches -- private only! in sketchbooks! -- and stop being afraid of your face; try to understand it for what it is instead of hating it!
stop being so hard on yourself and allow yourself some grace once in a while

Self-portraits as a class assignment are still lousy. I'd still hate them. But for self-study and practice -- they can be the ultimate form of art-as-therapy.

I'm going to cheat a bit at first. I have photos of myself that I shot (badly) for my blog which I took down during a time when all of a sudden I didn't want just anyone to be able to look at me. I'm going to start sketching from them. I can't take the live-face-in-the-mirror just yet.

See this photo at the start of the blog post? It's been a little while since I've had a photo up, and a long time since I've even broken a grimace, the first time a little wee bit of a smile started to reach my eyes, in a photo.

It's a start.

And I am happy that I look like my dad and my sisters and brother and mom and grandparents... beauty is the history, not some symmetrical alignment that wears makeup and the camera flash well.

I will, of course, forget this tomorrow. Hence, I need to do a quick sketch tonight, before I go to bed.

Labels: art, art life, personal

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Fishing for relatives.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I sold my Northern Pike painting last week.

The person who bought it? Well, it turns out he's one of my Neidlinger relatives from Indiana, currently in the military.

I find it mildly amazing to think of it, him searching for Northern Pike images hunkered down during a mortar attack, finding a painting, buying it, and finding out, after the purchase via email, that we're related (our great-grandfathers were brothers).

I just think it's cool. I have no further wisdom to offer, other than to share a really neat experience that started from a random internet search and some art.

Labels: art life

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Nefarious dried tube of paint which ruineth thee.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I'm working on painting a portrait of David's dog. All sketching and foundation drawings went well. Then I reached into my haphazard and messy container of paint tubes (following my usual expert-colorist system of grabbing a random tube of paint and basing the entire piece from that) when I pulled out the Sand In The Gears, Wrench In The Plans, Befuddler Almighty tube of paint.¹

The paint was basically on its last moist legs, thick and disgusting, and squeezing it out of the tube would have made many juvenile males, ages 14 - 36, laugh at what it looked like.

I'm so cheap. I couldn't just throw it away. And, since it was the tube I pulled out, habit was to use it as the "central" color (if Old Gold can be thought of as that). I hacked and squeezed and pinched and cut that metal tube, finally getting a significant amount of paint out on the palette. David had ordered a large portrait. It would take a lot of paint.

I then began experimenting with various acrylic mediums and water mixtures, and soon found myself spreading and brushing and scraping the paint into the paper. It was then that I realized I was having what I call a New Technique moment.

New Technique moments are generally terrifying and destructive to projects that would normally take me much less time. They consist of some slight change in controlled setting in which a brush goes haywire, I spill something, I grab the wrong mix to use, or I get it in my head to "fix" a mistake by using some odd material (for example, wall paper paste - very unusual results). Suddenly, I must confront Something New Is Happening Here, and figure out how to work with it. I have to change and adjust my absent-minded way of going about things.

"Should I maximize the effect with resist techniques? Preserve the undertones using gloss mediums? Paint over it and let it show through faintly?" I thought, mulling the second layer of David's painting.

New Technique moments are absolute musts. If you don't have them as an artist (or writer), you've happily entered the sad land of Rutville, a place where everything is done the same as before. A comfortable place. Very boring. Usually ends in beige.

I must apologize to David for how long this painting is taking. He probably won't even notice the Excitement! and Amazing Effects! and New Techniques! since, if it is to be a good painting, it shouldn't have all those exclamation points. In fact, it should have only one: "Julie, I like this painting!"

So, I struggle to come up with a way to handle the foundation left by the dried and fussy Old Gold, very much interested in what will become of this metallic-sheened painting which differs highly from the normal dog portrait route I've traveled in the past.

I think it will be lovely. And different.

(Is "lovely" allowed, for dog portraits?)

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¹ Technically, it was Winsor and Newton's Galleria Series, Old Gold.

Labels: art, art life

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The artist date.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

The concept of the "artist's date" sounded so lovely the first time I read about it in Julia Cameron's The Artists Way.

What is an artist's date? According to this web site¹, it's:

A commitment of time spent on yourself once a week.
Time spent solely on you -- no companions allowed.
A date with your inner-artist, or your inner-child.

Odd. Apparently my whole life has been one selfish artist's date.

I was first attracted to Julia Cameron's book because of her first name.

I'm not kidding.

Beyond that, her self-description (poet! playwright! novelist! filmmaker! composer!) attracted me because I've always wished I were a polymath, even in the loosest, most lazily modern sense of the word.

Alas, I'm merely a selfish artist, dating myself.²

I've got a fine collection of books like Cameron's, books to help me be more creative, a better artist, and a better writer. Prompts! Ideas! Suggestions! Organizational tips! Motivational lists! In the end, after reading so many of them, they seemed to be the artsy version of the "You Go Girl You Be A Diva Reward Yourself Clairol You're Worth It" line of thinking. Which bores me. Anyone can pander to selfishness and sell books. Do we really need to encourage people to spend more time on themselves? I mean, really?

I'm pretty good at naturally wanting to look out for Number One.

I'm sorry to say, but my "inner child" and "inner artist" are generally nasty little petty creatures prone to ruining my life. What's inner had better exist outer or I'll just end up...dating myself.

I pretty much just want to watch Murder, She Wrote, and call it a day. And come up with my own theories and systems for creating.

-----------------------------

¹ The photo featuring the clown with the balloons that is found illustrating the article on artist's dates is very wrong.
² In non-Seinfeldian ways.

Labels: art life, writing life

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The overly dramatic state of being.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

On one of my earlier web site versions (which you can now see archived, which I can see saved on my hard drive), I had a page where I would list...stuff. I'm not sure what you'd call it. Pre-blog? Mutterings? Page filler?

Time to resurrect...

-----------------------------------------

3/04
I am excited to start working with oil paint again. Mildly concerned about fumes, since it is too cold to open my door to the deck for ventilation...but still excited. I even purchased a few new paints, because my palette was so limited. After looking at a tube of paint that cost $20, I quickly headed over to the student grade section, and picked up the low-end $4 a tube paint. Yikes. Pthalo Green is a killer for cost.

12/03
My nephew introduced me to a project he made at school called a "biome" which I am excited to modify and turn into something I can use as a three dimensional paper creation.

6/03
Newest project? Try floundering in inadequacy.

4/03
New projects include a decided crisis in my belief of how important art really is. Despite what Ms. Kidman said in her Oscar acceptance speech... is art really important? I don't know. Maybe I just need a nap.

8/02
In the process of finishing up work for various clients and getting things ready so that I can leave the country, my head is exploding. That, then, is my new project - the exploding head.

4/02
I'm currently in a self-loathing period, but busy painting wildly colored oil paintings on masonite despite that. I should be having a gallery show of everything sometime in June, which would explain the self-loathing and the mad rush to paint. It's all quite eclectic - boards cut to fit a hodge podge of old frames (some quite hideous, to my great delight), and subject matter that's all over the board.

1/02-2/02
I will be teaching a night class in Langdon. The first will be from 5-7 and will cover drawing with different media. The second will be from 7-9 and will cover basic acrylic painting.

1/02
I will be taking part in the Marketplace of Ideas on January 10 at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks. For details, visit the MOI website.

10/01
I am going to be teaching an after school art class in Cando from 3:30 to 5:30. We will be learning to draw animals from anatomy drawings.

4/01
I am going to be teaching an after school class in Cando each Monday night for the month of April from 3:45 to 5:45. It will be on mixed media paintings, something I do quite a bit of.

3/5/01
When I look at how the postcards and letters of long ago were so beautifully written in elegant handwriting, I almost have a fit. People have such a scrawl now, including myself. My current project is teaching myself to write as they used to, using a metal nib pen that is dipped in ink. It's actually quite fun. Except that I suck.

2/5-26/01
I will teaching an introductory watercolor painting class in Langdon on Tuesday evenings. It looks to be a large class, and therefore, a bit of a challenge for me...

1/11/01
I will be setting up a booth at Marketplace of Ideas in Bismarck. Hopefully, I'll get to meet lots of new people, take some interesting classes, and make a few contacts!

11/30/00
I will be having an art show in the Cando Art Center for most of December. On display will be prints from my Highway 281 trip. This is a small showing, sharing space with another show.

10/31/00
I am trying to come up with my own written language! For no reason other than it sounds like fun. I was talking with someone recently about Tolkien's books, and how he made up that whole language and culture for his "Lord of the Rings". It just came to me to try it....

10/4/00
I will be teaching basic art classes to junior and senior high students at the Cando Art Center in Cando, ND. It should be a lot of fun, and I am looking forward to working with students who are interested in art! It will last into December.

9/11/00
Starting on the Monday evening of September 11th, I'll be teaching a book-making class at Lake Region State College as part of their adult continuing education program. It will meet every Monday night for four weeks. I will also be teaching an art history class, which is divided into three sessions as sort of a "greatest hits of art history". In each class, I'll highlight and discuss art we often see today, whether through TV, movies, magazines, advertising, etc. For example, the obvious ones will be Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Mona Lisa, Leaning Tower of Pisa... I'll put them in historical context, and discuss interesting facts surrounding their creation.

8/29/00
I am working on putting together a weekly cartoon for this site, probably to be viewed on my open submissions page. On my recent trip, in the process of joking around with my companions, three traveling cows developed. I'm thinking of expanding that to an odd farm animal cartoon with the same odd outlook we took to joking about. I have been fleshing out the characters in a sketchbook, with views of each character from front, sides, and back, along with a description of their personality. Also, I have been jotting down possible subjects of actual cartoons. I think it's pretty darn funny, however, I have an odd sense of humor (that's humour if you are from Great Britain) which has already caused my father to comment that what I planned for the token farm chicken characters was (and I quote) "sick", and "gross". However, the more I think about it, the harder I laugh. We'll see how it works out...

8/27/00
I will be having some of my work available in the Heritage Arts Gallery and Gifts, soon to be opening in Michigan, ND (in the former Lamb Oil/Kite Building) on Highway 2. I would encourage everyone to stop in should they be passing by the area, as it will be filled with fine arts from artists in this region, as well as heritage arts such as basketry and rosemaling. It will be opening soon, in time for the Christmas season.

5/10/00
On the burner right now are shadow boxes. I have no pictures right now, but I hope to soon. I am currently up to my eyeballs making a scaled down version of these boxes for graduation gifts. Basically, they are a wooden box with a glass front. Inside is either an object I have constructed, or, in the case of the large boxes, a scene in three dimensions. Something like a pop-up book, but in a framed case, you could say.

Labels: art life

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When you don't like art anymore.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

"I realized that I don't like art anymore."

A friend and fellow art major from college wrote that in a recent letter.

The things she described in her letter I understood completely. It has a lot to do with what I was trying to express in a post called "Creative Tools."

The clincher was page five of her letter, where she listed all of the things "they" say artists are supposed to be doing if they are "real" artists:

Get my name out there. Teach as many classes as I can.
Please everyone with my magic ninja art skills.
Feel guilty for not having a "body of work" that is all in the same style and centralized idea.
Feel guilty for not making art when I have free time.
Have a studio even though I don't use it because all arteests have studios.

I know each of these five points -- and more -- intimately. They are five vise grips, squishing me not into the form of a better artist, but a creative person unable to create.

I tried to answer back without being trite but instead, writing what I've learned so far that might help. I said that real art, like real friends, should make you happy. That it had nothing to do with:

Any ideas about "cohesive" "bodies" of "work"; these are just so people can label and categorize you and your art for an art show program without taking up too much space. Cohesive bodies of work often end up being monotonous and leave feelings of déjà vu.
You reasons for not quitting [the art teaching job] are valid and have nothing to do with a lack of courage or even you as a person.
Your personal dignity and your ability as an artist have nothing to do with your job.
Your job is teaching art right now. You are not a "failed artist making a living as a teacher." Your job is as a teacher. You are not your job.
I decided that all lists of what artists are expected to do are crap. You are an artist, so whatever you do is what an artist does. Period.
You'll stop liking art if you think you don't meet the list (described above) or if you confuse your job for who you are.

I also spent the evening drawing, painting, and glueing together a little worksheet to send to her that she might enjoy, and might, along with making her smile, even help. I am offering it to all my creative readers who have ever struggled with these things, whether in your art or writing. I hope you enjoy it and that maybe it helps, in some way, spark your creativity again.

Free Download: Worksheet for creative people who are feeling down on themselves. (PDF)

Labels: art life, free stuff, writing life

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Questions from a young reader: Artists and loneliness.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

::Since this question, though technically belonging to a series on the main Lone Prairie Blog, dealt with art, I thought it ought to go here.::

Artists and loneliness: A friend of mine, a poet, told me not long ago that there is a certain loneliness in being an artist. An artist sees things from a different perspective, and while they do their best to confront and display that through their lives and its outpourings, a large majority of the time, people just don't get it. One can be surrounded by like-minded people, yet still be outside. I wonder if this is truly the case, or if the artist merely attempts to shut everything out to let their thoughts and feelings surface. I am still trying to figure this one out, but I know that my friend, the poet, was right. I know, because I am there. I suspect you are there many times, as well.

I can only speak for myself and acknowledge that there are plenty of artists (writers, poets. etc.) out there who are gregarious and outgoing and appear to not be of the "lonely" variety. Whether they are, or not, I can't say. I can, again, only speak for myself and those like me.

I don't want to feed into any ridiculous artist stereotypes, since they usually involve, at their worst, things like berets and caftan gowns and bizarre hair and sallow skin. My own experience, however, has been similar to what you've described, what your poet friend has described.

There have to be observers.

There have to be people who don't enter the fray, the ones translating what's going on. No matter how we twist it and wish it were otherwise, observers must be on the outside. Certainly, we enter the fray every now and then (often times getting hurt or overwhelmed before pulling out), but the nature of observing is that of being outside and away.

This place, one of outside and away, is very lonely. People might appreciate your observations, saying they are true and helpful and real, and sometimes even think they understand what it means to be this kind of an observer if you do your job well enough. Unless they've been there, though, they do not know. The best artists' work are the ones people assign all kinds of familiarity and recognition to without realizing that they are mistaking an understanding of the observations for what it is like to be an observer.

I do have to shut some things, some people, out, but it cannot be permanent. There is a lot of noise in my head: too many ideas, maybe, or the screaming that tells me I'm a fake and a failure that makes functioning even just a little bit so very impossible. It's noisy and I have to shut off and shut out periodically to get it under control.

I can't permanently shut people out, even if in my past experience, letting them in hurts. I can't shut out the rest of life, the rest of the world. My thoughts, my creativity, the very thing that keeps me going, is dependent upon them. Being alone too long is not good. It starts to create a kind of weak and inbred creativity, quickly becoming apparent that I need to get back out there and either jump in the fray for a short while or at least set up another observation post.

Artists have to be able to be alone, but they can't buy the lie that they don't need anyone. You can't be an observer if you're not watching. You can't translate if you're not listening.

It's a synergy, and kind of an upsetting catch-22 in my case (and others, I suspect). I find that I always end up hurt by people (often not their fault), but that I create the best art and writing after just such a times. If I am away from people too long, not happy but not recently hurting inside, ideas dry up and I lack some kind of spark to make anything truly real and passionate. Being with people reminds me I care, and what I care about. Being alone for too long makes me devolve inwardly, and become shallow and selfish. This is reflected in what I create.

I read the theory¹ held by Kurt Vonnegut that artists and writers were like the canaries in a mine shaft when it came to society. The idea was that we could tell where a culture, where a people were headed, by looking at the creative output. I think it's a fairly accurate assessment, since as observers and translators, artists are reflecting back what they are seeing around them. The problem, however, is that the canary is stuck in a cage, and is far down a mine shaft. It's not an enviable place to be. The canary is the first to be overwhelmed, and to be hurt. And to die.

In the end, I understand that there are things to be observed and there are people to observe them. We can't be both, and I am not willing to trade my post.

-------------------

¹ Here's a blog post on a take on Vonnegut's idea, though it is not the one I originally read a few years ago. Warning: graphic war photo.

Labels: art life, writing life

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Failure to complete.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I am often discourage at my inability to finish projects. I also know that this is very much the norm for creative people: far too many ideas -- some started and some not -- than we'll ever be able to bring to completion.

Creative people are never short for ideas, then, but they are also never short for things that block those ideas and keep them from completing projects or goals.

Too many ideas: The proliferation of ideas is something that can overwhelm me. Though I have moments of writer's block/artist's block, it isn't for lack of ideas. Generally, it comes from too many ideas and lists of "shoulds" that have built up and clogged the gears, so to speak. There's no room to work with them all, since shuffling them around to process one or two of them means I might forget or lose or misplace one.

I hate to forget an idea, whether it is an art idea or a concept or theory I want to explore more in my writing. But I have to get them out of my head or I will grind to a stop and be unable to do anything. I can't press on. I have to deal with this overload or I will soon find myself focusing on my failure to institute the ideas instead of enjoying that I had them to spin around in my head in the first place.

Fear: Fear of failure, fear of success. Both paralyze me. Fear that I'm operating in some kind of void or vacuum and that no one is even on the same wavelength or interested in my silly little idea. Fear of rejection. Fear that I don't have the necessary skill, that I lack the chops to pull off an idea that was mine. Fear of being laughed at. Fear of being too well-liked and having to deal with compliments and people who glom on.

Time: Time management is key. I don't even think I have to expound on this, except to say that the concept of time management is a lie. It's not about managing time, but spending time. Time is money, and we spend it. Once spent, it's gone.

Help: I usually find myself fluctuating between needing help and not knowing where to find it, or not wanting help and needing to do something on my own and having people interfere with too many good intentions.

I don't have a solution for these, though I do have a few suggestions of things that I do that help a little bit as far as the first "problem", that of having too many ideas.

When I have too many ideas, I feel panicky inside. The ideas build up and I know I'm going to start forgetting the good ones. The absolute best outlet for this is a journal or sketchbook (whether you are a writer or visual artist). Until I've found a way to let the ideas out of my head, whether I end up doing anything with them or not, they sit and fester and eventually bring me to that standstill I described.

Let the ideas go. Get them on paper and forget about them. You can come back to them later, with fresh eyes, and see if they're worth the time or if maybe in need of a few changes. Regardless, you can free up space knowing that you wrote it down and can refer to it later. You can start thinking about new things and then write those down, too. There's something about that process of turning non-material thoughts into something dimensional and "outside of the moment" by writing it on paper and looking back on it five years down the road. It's an exercise in and of itself that ends up creating a fabulous work of art or writing.

It is so nice to be able to let ideas go. To forget about them, knowing they are in the safety of a journal.

Unless your house burns down. Or you lose the journal.

But that's a post for another day.

Labels: art life, journals, writing life

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Marketing art.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

I will be the first to tell you that I don't know how to sell myself.

By "myself", I mean that I don't know how to sell my art. I have lots of creative low-level ideas of how to get people's attention, but they seem to stall at creative and never get people to open up their wallet. My biggest method of selling what I make is, sadly, marking down the price. And that's not a successful way of making a living.

Basically, marketing is an unknown for me.

I've identified, over the years, reasons why my selling success is fairly low:

Personality: I don't have the personality for person-to-person pressure-type sales. I am extremely introverted and while extroverted people just shrug that off as an excuse...they really don't know that it isn't. It comes with serious hurdles. (I also don't think extroversion is the preferred personality trait in life across the board, but we'll just let that slide.)

Want: I don't like pushing people to buy something if they don't really want it. Conversely, I don't know how to make people want something. Too much hucksterism makes me feel like a liar and I despise gimmicks and perceived dishonesty in this regard.

Anti-Consumer: I have an irritating anti-consumerism streak inside of me and I hate to feed the monster of consumerism in other people just so I can sell to them.

Closed Mouth Syndrome: I absolutely am not able to talk about myself and my work in glowing terms and positive adjectives which convinces people that yes, this is what they absolutely need made by a person they can without question buy from. I can't brag on myself at all, but customers sometimes seem to need to buy from a person that exudes confidence in what they make.

Trust Issues Part 1: I know I probably need someone to do the selling for me, but I'm too stubborn to ask for help because I think I still need to solve this problem. I also don't trust people much at all, since I've had experience in the past with people who were going to "get your art into the big time" and all they really wanted was a hard copy of my portfolio for their own enjoyment, or some free art as a "sample."

Trust Issues Part 2: I've had to many experiences with shysters, people who order art or commission art or express interest or make promises, and never send the check to pay. I've been contacted by companies that promise to sell my work if I'll only pay $X to list on their web site, and nothing has come of it. It is distasteful to deal with people using up and making money off of artists without concern for the artist. I've been suckered into donating for "good causes" and seen not only no return, but more and more requests for art in which the artist is seen merely as a supplier.

Pride: I have a pride streak that doesn't want to create art for what I call "match my sofa" buyers, genre art that speaks to a specific niche. And, when I do decide that such pride is stupid, (usually when a big bill is due) I feel guilty while creating that art. Such pride is stupid.

Tastes: I have begun to wonder if my personal tastes and aesthetics are seriously off from the masses, since the art and craft items I create (that I know I would swoon over if I saw in a store) don't seem to inspire much reaction beyond a "cute." Cute does not pay bills. In fact, I often get people gushing over things I've made, but I absolutely cannot get them to go the next step, which is to buy. I wonder if they are gushing out of sincerity or if they think I need reassurance that I "can draw" which I don't need at this point in life. I know I can draw and that I make interesting things.

Summary: I can create something that people like, but I can't seem to make anyone want to buy it. That's kind of the basic problem, isn't it?

Solution?: I was emailed a link from someone who wanted to help by suggesting some art marketing books by Jack White. (Not the White Stripes singer, mind you.) These books can be found here:

Right now I do not have the $25 to purchase any of the books (highly ironic, if you think about it), and I always wonder, with my experience with buying such books in regards to writing, if the author is the success because he or she has convinced other people to buy his books. Nevertheless, the books look interesting. I'd love to hear from anyone who has read them or is familiar with their message.

Labels: art life, marketing

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A recipe for chaos.

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Ye olde artiste statement.

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Google pages.

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The Everything Group, for the right brained.

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Quiz: How not to respond.

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Sketchbook examples online.

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Facing up to self-portraits.

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Fishing for relatives.

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Nefarious dried tube of paint which ruineth thee.

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The artist date.

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The overly dramatic state of being.

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When you don't like art anymore.

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Questions from a young reader: Artists and loneliness.

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Failure to complete.

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Marketing art.