My Life As An Artist (Then and Now)

Hi there! It’s Monday and here begins what for now will be weekly posts on art in a brave new world and how we can accelerate our individual creativity. I’m exploring how I can be an artist now when the world I launched myself into back in the seventies no longer exists in the same way.

I began as an illustrator and have done hundreds of illustrations for various newspapers and magazines. That work is gone now as print media struggles to stay afloat in a digital world. Some of my illustrator friends are now painters, some do public art, some are print-makers. I turned to writing, an equal passion. I teach too and my book, The Confident Creative—Drawing to Free the Hand and Mind, is inspired by seeing my students open to their true creativity by drawing in experimental ways. What I liked about illustration was that it went immediately into the world. I think a lot about how I can make visual art with purpose now that old venues have disappeared.

It’s easy to see a new world is being born. It’s digital and democratic and beautiful. In the old world, we needed to be anointed by those in power in order to bring our work into the world. Art directors, gallery owners and juries decided whether or not our work would be valued or even seen. All of us bent ourselves sometimes into odd contortions in order to survive. We had children to feed. We tried to keep our work pure. But in our brave new world, the power is now in our own hands. Everyone can have a digital presence. We’re free!

For me, I see that my digital presence here as evolving art. WordPress is art—a virtual world of ideas and images and presence that we can all participate in. A place where our work goes instantly into the world—and at no cost! I’m letting go of old paradigms. The energy isn’t there for me but here. I’m inspired by a new generation of writers like Ev Bogue. They’re generating great new ideas and we can all participate in the conversation. We’re accelerating creativity. It’s not about finding our way in any more—we’re in already.

But let’s give thanks. The old world grew some grit. The struggle to stay true to who we are in the midst of pressures to conform let us know who we really are is beautiful and fine. All of us. It makes me think that all the divisive politics and wars are the last vestiges of power in the hands of the few that will now pass to we, the people. That, for me, is what art is now about—creating a new world, each by offering our unique selves to the world in whatever way we choose. And we’re going to need that grit.

More next week, if not before!

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And if you’re interested in accelerating your own creativity, please join my next workshop here in Boston— Drawing Out Creativity! It’s fun and it will clear the way to full creative expression. Now ONE full day—Sunday, October 23rd!

Sign up here!

Tagged as: Art, Creativity, digital world, world change