Art

The End To Unproductive Weekends

Garth Beyer

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Every weekend there are people who have open schedules to work on their art, but never use the time to their advantage. (Heck, I am even guilty of it from time to time.)

The single greatest tip I can give to have a successful weekend, whether your schedule is packed or not, is to get dressed.

Even more specifically, put shoes on.

Don’t trust me? Try it just once. Next Sunday, when you have zero plans, wake up and instead of staying in your pj’s, get dressed, put your shoes on, and the rest will take care of itself. And at the end of the day, you will have made accomplishments.

Sure, we have had a weekend that we got work done barefoot, but I know there’s not one weekend that we were wearing shoes and no work was completed.

Life is weird, but the moments you discover to be weird, you can also leverage.

 

Stay Positive & In What Other Ways Do You Leverage Your Weekend?

Garth E. Beyer

Two Types Of Art

Garth Beyer

The first is risk-free. It’s the type of art that you can destroy without second guessing yourself; the type of art you can return, get your money back, or just give away to someone else because you’re not attached. This type of art is noncommittal.

But it’s still art. In fact, it’s invaluable art.

This type of indefinite art is about expression as much as it is exploration. We can peck at it, flip it, and stick the end of our tongue to it to see what it tastes like. This art is about discovering through creating what we don’t understand. This art is to be played with.

The transition toward the second type of art is made through what all art shares: facing unresolved issues – the meaning of life, why this and not that, where do I belong.

Popular art – the second type of art – is when a creation contains answers.* The second type is about sharing findings, sharing answers, sharing your conclusions – egotistic or not. This is the most difficult type of art. To creat the first type, all you need to do is turn rumination into something tangible. For the second type of art, you have to commit, you have to accept all the criticism you will receive before you receive it. What ruins art creators is when they underestimate the amount of resistance they will have to face, internally and externally. The second type of art is simply art shared.

*[Right or wrong, they are answers. Popular art becomes such through connection, acceptance, and reality. It may not be the right answer for you, and it may be the wrong answer for her, but, essentially, it’s an answer for someone.]

 

Stay Positive & Create A Little Art. One Type Or Another

Garth E. Beyer

It’s Not Your Art

Garth Beyer

So what that you put hundreds of hours into creating what you did? Just because you went through all the pain of developing what you did, doesn’t make it yours. Even if you searched for every single piece of your creation and sold your sentimental belongings to afford what you made – it still doesn’t make it yours and it definitely doesn’t make it art.

Art is only art when it’s shared.

It’s the same with genius. Einstein wouldn’t have been a genius if he never shared everything he studied, ruminated, and experimented with. Or, a person can write a novel a year, but they will never be a writer unless they share it.

People might shout,

“This is not the time for metaphor! This is not the time for art! And this is certainly not the time for art about you!” But once you’ve shared your art and it’s resonated with a single person, it’s no longer about you — once you share it, it’s about everybody. And if your art is found by a single soul, shared with a friend who links it to a friend, and the response is whatever it is, you start to see how art becomes about everybody — just through the act of being shared.” – Amanda Palmer

I am stating that art becomes about everybody the same as it becomes everyones.

When I buy your art, I don’t see it the way you do. I don’t know how much money, time, sweat, blood, relationships, tears, mental exhaustion, late nights, and broken prototypes went into it.

When your art is in my hands – no, even when I see your art – it becomes mine too. It’s part of me. I put my emotions, my thoughts, my personality in and around it.

And let me tell you something. Art becomes so much more beautiful when it has amassed a variety of emotions, thoughts, and personalities.

 

Stay Positive & Sharing Always Makes It More Valuable

Garth E. Beyer

Are You Cereal?

Garth Beyer

Why have they not made cereal bags that you can open without ripping the bag in half?

Or why have they not made spoons that prevent milk from trickling down your chin?

Because of some very important factors.

  • 99% of the time, seeing someone trip is funny. So is watching someone try to open a bag of cereal or when milk trickles down their chin.
  • Broken things are remarkable, as in, worth talking about whether it’s bragging or complaining.
  • They let people connect with each other. Nothing says we’re perfect for marriage than knowing you both can’t open a bag of cereal without tearing the side of it.

It’s not just cereal. As long as the real thing – whether it’s cereal or your own invention – is great, the trouble getting there is worth it. Think about your art as a toy at the bottom of a cereal box. It sort-of sucks to get it. It’s not convenient, but it’s an accomplishable and sometimes entertaining challenge.

It gets people talking about the toy without actually talking about the toy. By having them share their stories about how they got the toy (and almost vomiting while finishing an entire box of cereal in one sitting), your “toy” becomes part of a real, emotional, personal memory.

This is why perfect art is worthless. You can’t have remarkable cereal without the bag.

 

Stay Positive & Your Art Is Never Just Art To Someone

Garth E. Beyer

Everyone’s Scared

Garth Beyer

Which means two things.

1. Very few dance with it or merely walk calmly forward. Few carry on when fear is pulling them back. That means that if you were to go forward with every fear imaginable (all fear is imagined), then you have an instant advantage without doing any of the easy work. Yes, dealing with fear is the hard work, actually making/doing whatever it is you’re passionate about is easy. Haven’t you walked into an art gallery and seen paintings that you know you could replicate? Making art is easy, but shipping it, putting it on the wall, giving it away, selling it – that’s the hard stuff. And fear is with you every step of the way.

2. Shame on you for enabling others to let fear control them. For saying it’s okay that they don’t give their work away, or suggesting they keep working on something until it’s better instead of showing it as it is. After all, the only way they will get better is if they show it and get feedback… from more people than just you. Yes, fear is what walks between you and your friend with its arms around both of your shoulders. Fear is tactful at making you as nervous as the person doing their work. That’s why you have as much responsibility to push others forward as they have to push themselves. Fear is about tough love and tough love will out.

 

Stay Positive & Keep On Keeping On

Garth E. Beyer

Numbing Emotions

Garth Beyer

There’s actually no way you can. You can hide them but they don’t play that game very well. By default emotions do the seeking. You can fake them, and sure, sometimes you fake it until you make it, but rarely.

Rarely because emotions are the effervescence of your pursuit. It’s not the way you painted the portrait that an observers falls in love with, it’s the emotion that they can see was put into it.

On the other side of the spectrum, you can’t numb the negative emotions of vulnerability, of being rejected, of getting criticism that you couldn’t handle. And that’s okay.

The way I see it is this: falling down doesn’t cease the pain.

The only options you have are to either keep creating art despite how much it may hurt or to find a new way to make better art by leveraging your emotions. You may not be able to numb them, but you can always leverage them.

 

Stay Positive & Lean Into Discomfort

Garth E. Beyer

The Sweat Of Perfection

Garth Beyer

No. This isn’t about working hard. It has nothing to do with perfect practice making perfect. It actually has nothing to do with quality. It does, however, have everything to do with fear, effort, and vulnerability.

Edward R. Murrow called stage fright ‘the sweat of perfection.’

What Murrow was implying is that getting yourself up there, just doing it, trying, testing, shipping, making yourself vulnerable, opening yourself to criticism, sharing what you have created is what makes perfection.

You can build a myriad of matryoshka dolls but they will never be perfect unless you share them, because that’s what creating is really about.

Perfection is a state of completeness and nothing is complete until it’s given away.

 

Stay Positive & Perspire Perfection

Garth E. Beyer