Now that the fall semester has started, I’m a bit scared I won’t have time to work on my book. I woke up early today to work on the 10th chapter, which seemed to go pretty well. But I wrote a lot of these chapters from much shorter blog posts (in part) in 2022, so I have some scaffolding for many of them. I’ve also been able to structure them all ahead of time so the book has an overall arc, I guess you could say.
I’m taking three classes; however, that’s 11 credits total, which is basically a full-time schedule. What’s worse, the ASL class takes place in the last eight weeks of the semester, so it’s going to be intense. Any foreign language class makes for a hefty load anyway. Cramming it all into eight weeks? That’s going to be hard. So far, Art History is a lot denser than I expected. I thought I already knew a lot of art history, but so far I’m having a pretty hard time remembering all the new words: the historical eras, locations, who ruled Europe during which timeframe, and the religious views of the time. I thought I knew a lot about that too. Apparently not!
Many countries used to be called different things, and I forgot about that. Other than Mesopotamia and the Ottoman Empire, I hardly know much else about those regions! I hardly knew which exact years count as “prehistoric,” “Paleolithic,” Mesolithic,” and “Neolithic.” And will there be a test on all that? Probably.
As for the book, it looks like there will be 22 chapters in all, plus some kind of preface that I’ll write when I’m done with the rest. My estimate of around 50K words still holds. It will be a nice, short book like I wanted. If I can carve out time in my current schedule, I can probably still finish it before the end of the year, but it won’t be easy.
The original plan was around 18 chapters, but I’ve added four more subjects I want to write about, perhaps five, but I wonder if I’ll have enough wordage for the subject of integrity, which I have a lot of passion for. It’s one of the more important subjects, and it’s better for artists to grasp it sooner rather than later.
One of my main objectives with this book is to share as much information as possible so readers don’t make the same mistakes I did, especially early on. I wish someone had told me about some of these things I learned through mistakes and trial and error.
The last chapter, or at least the end of the book, includes a few more creative and planning exercises than some of the earlier chapters.
The earlier “exercises” are more practical than creative, but I think they’re fundamentally necessary. They set up the initial framework in the very beginning—something I never thought about doing when I first started, but I was very young, and I probably didn’t think even to call myself a visual artist at that time.
Though I made art for much longer than I played music (even the first things I made appeared into existence before I can remember), I considered myself a musician years before I’d call myself a visual artist.
Now that I’m writing about this, I remember I forgot (remember I forgot??) to mention that an artist sort of mentored me early on—not early enough—but much of what he taught me was about integrity and committing to the view that my art mattered more than almost everything else. He never trained me about artmaking itself, but he pushed me into a new way of committing to my practice, which in turn, placed art far above music. I mean, it was different, and I kinda knew then that art would last longer/be my deeper endeavor than being a musician.
Thinking about that now, it reminds me of my first drum teacher, who was also very hard/strict with me. He pushed me to practice harder than most others would. I put in about six to eight hours of practice every day for the first five years. I did it until playing became as familiar to me as my own toothbrush.
I had very complicated relationships with both of these guys. I’d say I was profoundly inspired, but it also bordered on abusive. To this day, I have mixed feelings: I feel both deep resentment and high respect toward both of them. This dichotomy is what makes these feelings entangled and convoluted. It’s actually too bad. And I no longer speak to either of them. But such is life.
Throughout the whole time I’ve been writing this book, I’ve been trying to think of a title for it. I’m pretty sure I’m mainly titling it What Matters, but it’ll have a colon after that and some kind of subtitle—something like: a roadmap for artists starting, but not exactly that—something with a tad more pazaaz or something that flows easier off the brain. Of course, I’m still thinking about it. Do you have any brilliant thoughts?
In closing, and I have no real idea why, other than I just ran into these, I’m posting pictures of the studio I had in 2010 in Highland Park that I named Moppet. I guess I was proud of everything I fixed up in it. I spent a lot of money on acid-washing the floors, putting in a fire door, painting the front of it, among other things. I also really miss this particular easel, which was my Sorg—something you can’t buy anymore, plus it won’t fit under a regular 8′ ceiling. Oh well.
