August 14, 2004
where to draw the red line
More thoughts on “How To Be Creative”:
15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. The more you need the money, the more people will tell you what to do. The less control you will have. The more bullshit you will have to swallow. The less joy it will bring. Know this and plan accordingly.
Recently I heard Chris Ware, currently one of the top 2 or 3 most critically acclaimed cartoonists on the planet, describe his profession as
If you are the natural self that you are, you use your artistic abilities out of joy. When you use your artistic abilities out of reward you distort them.
You produce forms of art because you think you should, not because it is a joyful part of your being.
And you begin to question, “Who needs my art most?” Very few people can understand the true nature of his own creativity to draw the red line.
Part of drawing that line for me has been deciding who I am willing to work for and who I’m not, regardless. Before the dot bomb, I supported the art by freelancing as a graphic designer. At one point, in late 1999, I was working for a company who made accounting software. They had an “interesting” biz model… Instead of retiring products when they came out with an upgrade, they would continue to offer the older versions at a progressively discounted rate. So in Novemeber 1999, I found myself redoing the packaging for accounting software that proclaimed right on the box that it was *not* Y2K compliant. What kind of asshole would sell flawed software just hit the few cheap-os out there who would be happy to cry murder when they lost all their financial data? Yeah, I quit that gig.
Last month, for the first time, I had a client refuse delivery on a sculpture. They had commissioned me to do a piece to replace the two sculptures they had already commissioned two other artists to do, neither of which they liked. Red line? Well, red flag anyway, right? They were in every way the worst clients I’ve ever had, even putting aside the money issue. I took the gig ’cause I really needed the cash, and after wasting a lot of time and material, I walked away without the cash…
I think the red line is definitely something an artist needs to draw. The way to decide where to draw it? Think back to what Hugh has said before, “products are conversations.” Do you want to talk to this client? *Can* you talk to this client? Business is also a relationship…If you take the gig for the same reasons you take home the last woman standing at the bar, are you gonna be happy in the morning? Probably not. The first place to draw the line is a solid distance this side of desparation… The best way to draw the line is to decide exactly what you want to do, then figure exactly which one of the 6 billion people on the planet has the money and the interest in seeing the project done. Track them down, and sell them. Having done your research, you will already know that you have enough in common to work on the project, hence, you already know that they *are* someone you would want to have a conversation with.
Frank Cho (Liberty Meadows) left newspaper syndication to comic book format just because of people telling him what to do. So it happens alot in comic field it seems, when he was doing the newspaper form he had an email list that he would tell the changes he had to make.
It is my considered opinion that folks will give you an idea of the kind of businesspersons / human beings they are right off the bat: just let ‘em talk and take careful note. The anecdotes they choose to tell will give you everything you need to know.
Beware of the conversation with the producer that begins, “The last guy I had in here wound up with a broken nose. Well, he pushed me first.”
I don’t think that’s the meaning of “suffering for your art”.