So anyhoo about the blog..............its a wonderful read about these super talented people and I have started capturing key points that hit a note with me in a folder just so I can go back to them later. One of the interviews that I really liked was Justin Maller and what he says here about creativity:
Are you creatively satisfied?
In terms of having an outlet to express creativity, yeah. Totally. If you ever want to be satisfied creatively, then put an expectation on yourself to make a complete piece of art every day, like I’ve been doing with the project. Through that, I have an avenue to explore whatever stupid idea pops into my head. Today I was in the dog park, letting Frank run around, and instead of talking with the other dog owners like I usually do, I decided to listen to some Neil Young. I listened to “Heart of Gold” and “Old Man” on loop. “Heart of Gold” struck a chord with me, and I decided to make an actual gold heart for today’s piece; it’s halfway done and I have to go home tipsy and finish it tonight. My only rule with Facets is that it has to be done before I go to sleep. Having an expectation to deliver is a good way to focus your energy, and that time parameter makes for a very defined creative outlet.
A lot of the jobs I do these days allow me quite a bit of creative freedom, and what’s great is that this Facets project has lead to so much more work in a style that’s still new and fresh to me. The geometric style I’ve developed is pretty far removed from my previous stuff and is way more illustrative. Kids, if you want a good way to grow your profile as well as your abilities, show people something new every day; they tend to respond well to that! Doing this project has won me a new audience and has been professionally rewarding as well, but as with everything I’ve done with my career, I did it for myself first and the commercial aspect followed. When people hit you up to do work, it’s usually months or years after when you first did it for yourself. For some reason this Facets stuff has caught on faster than anything else.
There’s some good advice in there. What else would you say to a young person starting out?
The most important thing to do, especially in the beginning, is just to make work for yourself—work that pleases you and has no bigger agenda than to make you happy. I think that too many people start out trying to make work that will appeal on a commercial level. There’s certainly a point where it’s important to show the application your skill can have in a commercial environment—there’s nothing wrong with that. But in the beginning, when you’re building your skill set and developing your personal voice as an artist, you have to do it for yourself, for your own pleasure.
The other thing is that I think people have an exaggerated expectation of the timeline that their creative career will unfold in. This doesn’t happen in six weeks or six months; like any other career, it takes years. You work a shitty job, do artwork on the side, and get better on your own time while you experiment. I feel like that approach is somewhat lost.
Also, doing tutorial after tutorial and devouring every blog under the sun is not a surefire way to accelerate your development—it’s a good way to make your work look like everyone else’s and end up with a generic blend of shit with nothing to delineate you from the next guy. Why take these cues from someone else? Don’t let someone else define your visual lexicon or your artistic approach. Find new places, create new approaches! Whoa, I didn’t mean to go there that quickly.
Read the full Interview HERE.
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