I do like to draw. Really. Some people say I'm good at it. I even made a go and had a bit of a career doing it at some point in my life. And, yes, there is a little part of me that is still capital-A Artist and it prompts me to express myself through art. And so I wonder-- could I still create something of my very own, even if my life-path has most decidedly taken me down different trails?
If I ever do (and I'm not saying yes or no!) it would have to be on my very own, with my very own projects, in my very own style. Which actually is kind of the problem. I'm one of those few rare artists that would actually prefer working with other people's projects in other people's styles.
I'm thinking about all of this after coming across this essay written in response to an artist hoping to get a portfolio review. I found it on the Robot 6 blog, who gave it this blurb: "Jim Zubkavich, project manager for UDON, shares his response to 'an intense two screen long message' from an artist who wants to work for the studio: 'Your artwork is not as good as you think it is.'" You can read the entire responce here.
It brought up many things that I was faced with as I once tried to make my way through an industry that is really quite small. Based on what I experienced, I'd add two things to Zubkavich's points:
1) Your work is only as good as your competition allows it to be, and your competition includes veterans in the industry with years of professional and personal experience.
and
2) Even if you get one gig, you pretty much have to repeat everything you did to get the first one in order to get the second one. In which case, you start with the problem of #1 all over again, because 99.9 percent of the time, those veterans are finding that in order to get the 713th gig, since very often they have to repeat everything they did getting those 712.
And if you can accept #1 and #2 as reality and still feel hopelessly abandoned to your craft (not just the industry but the pure love of the craft itself,) then you'll have What It Takes.
So, yes. Maybe I like to draw, but honestly, I'm okay with not having What It Takes. I'm comfortable with where my life is right now, and I like who I am regardless of what it is I'm doing. I used to think that because I could do Art, then I must be an Artist. What I had to realize (the hard way) is that the correct idiom should be: I must be an Artist, which I can use to … do whatever I want! And that is incredibly liberating.
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