Question: Why Do I Discount My Work?
15 Jun
A reader writes:
I would like to know why I always discount my efforts – I have “real” artwork (that I don’t seem to get around to doing much) and then I have “non-art” that I mess around with and do nearly every day. I tell people it’s a matter of intent and materials – just goofing around with whatever is at hand doesn’t cut it – I can’t show or sell the everyday stuff – only the serious art counts. Am I right or am I wrong?
I’m glad I don’t have examples of your work to cloud the issue. Because it doesn’t matter if your “real” artwork is a collection of fine (but neglected) oils and your “non-art” is macaroni glued to construction paper. What’s happening here is all about attitudes and beliefs.
The critical part of your mind thinks like this:
Your “real” art is up there with the hawks and the orcas. Your “non-” art is down there with the plants and the plankton.
You have these attitudes and beliefs because you grew up with parents, teachers, critics, the Evil Mainstream Media, etc. who feel more comfortable when culture is categorized into high and low, good and bad.
The artistic part of your mind, however, thinks like this:
In this context your “real” art and your “non-” art aren’t so easy to judge. Everything’s connected and related and somehow necessary. What it all means is up to you.
Is it better to be a maned goose or sedge? I don’t know. Maned geese are on top, but sedge is awfully central. Even daphnia and decayed matter—lowly as they are—can lay claim to getting good eat-and-be-eaten action.
Both the “food chain” and “food web” models of culture have their merits, but as someone who used to make a living as a critic, I can testify to how limiting the food chain mentality is. It’s hard to see the true potential of your work if you’re constantly putting things into categories.
The answer for you might be to stop goofing off and get serious, but let me ask you this:
What would happen if you stopped dismissing your “non-art” as “non-” and started taking it seriously? Where would you want to take it? How would you get it there?
Good luck and let me know how it goes.
One of my favorite quotes by Oscar Wilde seems to fit here, “All bad poetry is sincere.”
I wouldn’t pay attention to critics and anybody else who tries to make you fit the mold. They have psychological reasons for doing so. Those who do do so, however, never will do great things in life, for this is the very opposite of that. Forget everybody else.
I think a good balance is what is best. I like to work on my art but i also like to watch a movie every now and again. Ah food web, film is unconstuctive?. No because that film could inspire my next lo -fi movie
What a brilliant way of putting it (how often have I written that into this comments box?).
Would it be reasonable to add useful/useless to the list of categories? I understand the point is to stop thinking in categories, but I’ve noticed also that people will categorise things according to those tags. Useful is when you’re either being a producer (at a recognised, formal employment position), or else consuming what someone else produced. Useless is when you produce without a ready, immediate market, or when you consume something not necessarily created for consumption (like those spoof videos made from newsreels that were featured here a little while ago).
I’m not saying I agree with the above category (I think it’s crap, actually), but it’s a bind that seems to come up a lot and winds up pushing the “art” stuff further away than it needs to be.
I have a story I’ve been trying to sell for FIVE YEARS. It’s my favorite story I ever wrote for a myriad of reasons, most of all because I said as close to what I was trying to say.
Five years. Several near misses. An acceptance by a pro mag and then subsequent rejection based on a national news item. But I kept sending it out because damn it, it’s my favorite story ever and I don’t care if it’s my best written or whatever, it’s MY favorite.
It’s just been shortlisted at another pro mag. We’ll see. But the point is, I’ve had a lot of people, some editors and also friends, tell me it wasn’t my best work.
Didn’t matter. I think it’s my best work, so there.
I also recently sold what I think is my crappiest little short story after only three rejections.
Screw the categories and try to sell everything.