The single most important aspect of being an artist.
What’s the number one, most important thing you could do to ensure your success on the long road to becoming an artist?
Choosing to be an artist - as your career - is more than just going “off the beaten path”.
It is more than a job.
It’s more than a choice even. Most of us don’t even feel we have a choice. Often it is more like a compulsion.
I read this word the other day, brought to my attention by the lovely Susie Dent, and it struck a chord with me in a profound way.
Cacoethes (kak-o-ee-thees)
The desperate urge to do something very inadvisable.
“The cacoethes to be an artist”
It’s true. It is a very inadvisable “choice” - which is why it’s easier to understand when you realise, for some of us… it’s not a choice.
In the words of Christopher Ulrich “If you can do anything else… do that!”
“Grace” 2010 oil on 36" x 48" canvas by Christopher Ulrich
The romanticisation of “the starving artist” is a reality for most, but there is one way in which we can make the path a hell of a lot easier on ourselves. It’s not really a secret, but all too often artists don’t appreciate the true value of it….
COMMUNITY
Find your damn community. You don’t have to fit in perfectly, you’re an artist for fuck’s sake, you rarely fit in anywhere. And that’s okay!
Find people who are as serious as you are about art making. You don’t need to be making the same style of art, but having someone who understands your struggles (and faces them with you) will make your journey so much easier - and more fun.
It’s a long and lonely road, and I’m sure you already spend most of your time alone. Find some peers to traverse the journey together.
It took me too many years to figure out why I felt so alone. Why I didn’t feel inspired enough to stay focussed.
And while I was doing lots of important self discovery, which I would never discredit, or call a waste of time, I think I could’ve gotten to where I am now a lot quicker if I’d had this realisation earlier.
All my friends were musicians, and I kinda thought that was enough. It’s not. It’s not the same. Same same but different is still not the same.
In 2018 I finally realised I needed artist friends. After having spent 2.5 years working endlessly in my studio, trying to navigate taking my art progress really fucking seriously, while working really fucking late nights every weekend AND trying to have a social life with people who work 9-5…. I somehow managed it, but kind of not really. And ultimately I realised, I was lonely. I needed people around me who understood my life path, that didn’t make me feel like I was flailing and failing.
Shout out to my besties who never purposefully made me feel like I was failing at life. I love you guys endlessly.
I was doing it to myself. Because I could see them progressing by mile stones they could measure that were relevant to their lives… unfortunately those same mile stones look completely ridiculous when applied to my life. I’m not getting “promoted”, I can’t afford a mortgage, I’m not married or having babies or renovating my kitchen etc.
So by those standards, I am just some under slept, unmarried, baby-less gypsy doomed to rent for the rest of her life.
Back to 2018… I decided to go to on an intensive art retreat up in the beautiful hinterlands of Byron Bay at a wonderful place I will forever keep close to my heart: Paradise One - run by Yao and Frank.
That painting course, with teachers Adam Scott Miller and Chris Dyer, went for 9 days and both artists taught us their approaches to art making and general ethos.
I had never heard of either artist and didn’t even know what “visionary art” was at the time, but I knew it was probably going to be full of doofers (Australian rave scene punters). That’s all I needed to know, Doofs were basically the only places I had ever felt semi-normal in my life.
My sole intention was… to meet at least one person, from Melbourne, who was as serious about making art as I was.
The art gods heard my prayer, and I was blessed to not only meet that person, shout out to Tennessee, but also got to meet a bunch of cool crew from all over Oz, and made some real measurable progress in my technique AND forever memories while doing it.
Ever since meeting Ten, we have fostered even more of a community here in Melbourne, shown in festival galleries, put on group shows, and organised weekly/monthly art jams. It has been an absolute life saver, and I’m not sure I could have continued to push myself in my art if it weren’t for her, and the legendary community I have around me now.
Find your tribe. Catch up and talk about art, show together, see shows together… put on your own shows if you have to.
Doing it online works too! I also have a weekly catch up with my beloved Dark Art Society which are my American friends. I look forward to it every week because it’s my weekly dose of a social life.
I promise you, it’s the most important aspect about becoming an artist
(Aside from actually making the art…)
Love Ash
Written by Ash Darq, with special thanks to my editor Visaic
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