Artists, why you must love your own work.

I have spent a lot of this afternoon uploading dozens of new artworks to my website. Here's one of them ...

I must say, I love these drawings.

I love all my work, really. That's not something you're really supposed to say, as an artist. I suppose people think that by saying that, you must mean that you think that all your work is great or something …

Why shouldn't you?

Here's the thing, thinking your work is great does not imply that you think it's greater than someone else's. It doesn't imply that you think that everything you create is a unquestionable masterpiece.

It's a shame that's not obvious … it's really basic stuff … but, I don't think that it is to most people. Because, what we've been told is that the goodness of things only exists in relation to other things being bad and on a certain level, that's true … but what level are we choosing to operate on? The level of popular culture, on which everything is ranked based on asinine metrics and only fairly dull stuff even gets to be ranked in the first place? No thanks.

When we use a word like 'great', we mean it in its far more important sense … which is to say, its greatness is inherent to the fact that it simply exists and persists! 

When I say that my work is great, I mean that my work and the process of creating it gives me strength, grants me insight and inspiration, facilitates deep connections, allows me to learn and earn … It's great because it exists and it helps me to keep on doing so – not to mention thrive. 

Incidentally, the good news is that none of this has much to do with talent. Making great art is available to anyone who wants to. You've just got to get really into it … and you've got to have an evolved understanding of what it means for art to be 'great' … Art being great really means that it's got to be great for you … like ginger or something.

I don't really know what anyone else thinks about my work, outside of the occasions when they go out of their way to tell me and in actual fact, unless they do so, it's none of my business.

Sometimes even when people do go out of their way to tell me what they think of my work, it turns out, aha! They have mistaken their opinion for my business … I am not interested in opinions – even my own – I'm interested in reflections. There's a massive difference between these two things. For example, I know when I'm submitting an opinion or offering a reflection, because opinions feel thin and brittle in the mouth, they die out quickly in the air and leave a stale taste. After I've said them I think, 'That was flimsy' and I feel like a politician.

Reflections feel much nicer to say and they spread out like a pool, for you and your conversant to bob around in for a while – or if you're talking internally, you get the pool to yourself.

 Artists. Ignore all opinions, even your own. Work only with reflections.

I do know this, though. Something that's really great for one person, is highly likely to be great for at least a few other people too. I trust that to be true and so I keep going and keep sharing. I'd like to provide something valuable to other people, as well as myself.

Also, making art is my job … quite literally how I pay to live.

That being said, I'm self-taught. The 'art world' has never shown any interest in me. I don't have rich parents. I don't have connections, I'm almost fourty and it's a bit late to do anything else … In this position, I have to think my art is great. If I don't believe in it, nobody else will.

This is something that every artist must understand.

Artists, you have to love your own work.

To love your work does not mean to fawn over your own work. It does not even mean to always like your own work or ignore its flaws. To love your own work does not mean to think that your work is superior to the work of others.

To love your own work simply means to truly accept your work as a part of who you are … and you have to love who you are.

That's not easy. Not least because we have all grown up in a world that basically roasts us in every waking moment, for daring to be compelled toward satisfying many of our own most basic needs.

Need rest? Ya workshy little oik!

What about some connection with nature? Get a grip, tree hugger!

Can I at least express myself? LOL, no. Why would anyone care what you've got to say?! Plus you can't draw.

It really be like that.

'Rise again flattened one, push outward your steady form'

That's a lyric from the song 'Polyfila', by me and Frank Wadja, our duo is named 'Grow Silver', listen here

To stand any chance of becoming un-flattened, we must take steps … big steps … away from this booming voice of treason. I say treason because it's a voice dissenting against the personal sovereignty of each human being to live, properly.

Incidentally, that's what the song 'I'm a King' is about … I released that song the day of Charles' coronation. Listen here.

The hook says,

'I'm a king, I could never be a subject. You're a queen you could never be an object. There's no subjects, there's no objects, it's all perspective, let's get reflective.'

Here, a comparison is drawn between the so called 'subject' of a Kingdom/ 'object' in the sense of a woman being objectified and both terms as they are used within the philosophical concept of 'the subject/object relationship', which refers to the dynamic between the perceiving subject and the perceived object. A dynamic that I understand to be illusory – but that's for another day.

Now, I am quoting myself. Why? Because I write songs about things that I'm really interested in. I do that because I want to listen to songs that are talking about things that I'm interested in and sound like I want them to. 

Some famous author or another whose name escapes me was saying in a Paris Review interview that I read once - and I'm paraphrasing here - that in fact, the writer has a rather odd relationship to books, because in a certain sense they write books because they haven't quite found one by someone else that has quite got it right yet. There is some truth in that. 

I never make art about things that I think other people will be interested in but that I am not interested in. To do that would be breathtakingly arrogant. A lot of people are doing it and it shows in the state of culture.

Artists. Make the art that you want to see/hear/feel. Be guided only by this need to make art that you really need to experience.

I have digressed.

Back to those steps we must take away from the booming voice of treason … the one you've probably heard at least a dozen times today, on some, 'Why are you wasting your time on this? It'll never make any money!', 'Don't say that … people won't like it' etc. etc.

Well, I don't know really … Everyone has to figure out their own steps.

I'll say that, for me, there are two things of paramount importance to my being able to remain motivated and inspired, pretty much the entire time … which I am.

I have a feeling that this is another thing that you're not supposed to say … as though it's some kind of boast … but in truth, it takes a lot of discipline, sacrifice and effort to create a life in which inspiration is almost always available and you are ready to translate that inspiration via several mediums … especially once you have your own bills to pay.

So anyway, here are two big things which are big for me, in regards to all this: 

Number one: a lot of silence – aural, visual, intellectual – I love to engage with a whole lot of NOTHING. The good news is, it's free. On the other hand, like a lot of the best things it can take a while to get into but once you do you'll wonder how you ever coped with the endless onslaught of noise that you were subjecting yourself to.

Number two: Only breaking out of silence for something that's just as good … like a particularly amazing piece of music, a real conversation, to paint a picture, to look at a flower … that sort of thing.

That's all for now.

Speak soon and don't forget to leave a comment if you have any thoughts about all this.