November 1, 2009
11 Comments
[“Untitled 091101″. Ink on business card. Drawn earlier today.]
It’s been an interesting couple of weeks at gapingvoid Central. Sometime during September, I started drawing in earnest again, back in my original, no-frills ink on “Back of Business Cards” format. We’re talking 2 – 3 hundred of them in the last month.
I felt the need to get back to my roots– back to something simpler, back in touch with the “Utterly Basic” sensibility I had when I was living in New York– no other reason.
Plan to be seeing more of these efforts posted online soon. Very exciting!
I’m just so happy right now. I feel new again. Seriously.
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twitter. Limited Edition Prints. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
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A very respected journalist once told me, “I’m always telling students, if you want to be a journalist, for God’s sake don’t be a Journalism Major. Study something else, like The Classics or Architecture. That means when you start looking for work, you’ll be bringing something to the table besides ‘Shop Talk’.”
Great, great advice. And what’s true for aspiring journalists is also true for artists. We get so fixated on our own shtick– and the shtick of our peers, and whoever is in fashion that week– that we close ourselves up to the very kinds of experience that will make our work deeper, richer and more interesting in the long run, and “Talk Shop” instead [And bloggers are the worst. Why? Because it’s so much easier for a blogger to write about social media than it to write about something more original. I’ve been as guilty as anyone.].
Then again, it’s hard to make a significant body of work long-term, unless you’re totally obsessed and single-focused. Besides eating, drinking and screwing, Picasso didn’t do much else with his time, except make art.
On this subject, the best thing I’ve heard recently came from the composer, Phillip Glass, who my Twitter buddy, Hazel Dooney quoted recently: “I have one secret. You get up early in the morning and you work all day. That’s the only secret.”
My advice? Don’t worry about being an artist. Worry about getting the work made. If you’re any good, the rest will follow. Rock on.
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twitter. Limited Edition Prints. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
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Recently I did something dramatic: I got rid of my Blackberry, and I started leaving my computer at the office.
So now I am without (GASP!) Internet access 12 – 16 hours a day!
The “Always-On Culture” had been feeling oppressive for a while now. Finally I decided to do something about it. Basta.
The biggest benefit so far is; I’m drawing a hell of a lot more. This is, after all, what I get paid to do, and what I’ll be remembered for. Nobody will ever care how many Twitter followers I had or how SEO-optimized my blog was.
The Internet liberates us from so much; it’s our duty not to become again enslaved by something else.
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twitter. Limited Edition Prints. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
