{"id":1759,"date":"2016-03-17T23:27:07","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T23:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/2016\/03\/17\/dear-ads-i-am-a-working-artist-who-has-not\/"},"modified":"2016-03-17T23:27:07","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T23:27:07","slug":"dear-ads-i-am-a-working-artist-who-has-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/2016\/03\/17\/dear-ads-i-am-a-working-artist-who-has-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear ADs, I am a working artist who has not ‘broken through’. I am in my mid 30’s and not yet ‘a big deal’. It’s difficult at this point to start new projects because I despair of ever reaching the career goal posts I have set for myself. I intellectually understand that I am not old, but it is hard to see artist after artist in their early 20s being lifted aloft and not judge myself as wanting in comparison. Sincerely- ‘Wasn’t cool when I was young, either’."},"content":{"rendered":"

dearartdirector<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

This is both a really personal, and also a really universal issue. Let me answer you in a bit of stream of consciousness here, bear with me.<\/p>\n

1\u2014\u201dBreaking thru\u201d and\u00a0\u201cBig Deal\u201d are completely arbitrary concepts, depending entirely on your POV. I am friends with artists who were (and still are) heroes to me. They\u2019re so famous, and so goddamn good<\/i>, that you\u2019d think they could rest on their laurels and finally relax and just go about being great and enjoying it. But it\u2019s not true, because that feeling of never being where you want to be, not having made it yet, never goes away. It doesn\u2019t matter how far you climb, that feeling climbs with you. So get used to it<\/i>. In a way, you need it. The artists that don\u2019t have that drive never rise above mediocre. It\u2019s that dissatisfaction that keeps you striving. Unfortunately it can also make you miserable. Each of us needs to find a way to balance and walk the tightrope between being dissatisfied enough to keep growing, while letting ourselves be pleased with what we\u2019ve accomplished at the same time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Go ahead, listen to some interviews with some artists you admire<\/a> – they\u2019re all going to talk about having this feeling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And remember, no matter where you are on the ladder – you\u2019re only looking up the ladder to your <\/i>heroes. Remember there\u2019s also people below you on the ladder looking to YOU and wishing they could be where you are.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/figure>\n

2\u2014Don\u2019t fall into the trap of comparing the 100% of your life that you know with the 10% or 25% or even 50% of someone else\u2019s life that you can see. Social media and the internet in general is the worst for this, but it happens in real life too\u2026you\u2019ll see someone\u2019s successes and not see their hardships. We do this naturally as human beings. We don\u2019t put our chronic diseases, our divorces, our depressions, our failures, out there for the world to see nearly as much as we celebrate our wins. You see the artist suddenly getting all the book cover commissions, but you don\u2019t see that they\u2019re stuck in the house 5 out of 7 days with Crohn\u2019s Disease. You see someone get into Spectrum or American Illustration, but you don\u2019t see that they\u2019re going through a period of depression and intense dissatisfaction with their work to the point that they haven\u2019t made anything new in six months. You see the concept artist working on a bunch of big movies, but you don\u2019t see them struggling with overwork injuries. The key here is to just assume, just know<\/i>, that you\u2019re not seeing the whole story. Don\u2019t compare your lows to another person\u2019s highs.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/figure>\n

3\u2014Goals are both critical to your success, but at the same time, can defeat you before you begin. Instead of setting really big goals that immediately overwhelm you with how far you have to climb to get there, try setting priorities instead. This exercise might help<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

4\u2014The solution is to stop caring about what everyone else is doing, how young or old everyone else is, and especially worrying that you\u2019re too old, too late, not where you want to be yet, haven\u2019t hit an arbitrary goalpost. Just put your head down and make great work. Show it to the right people. Repeat.<\/b> You\u2019ll get there. Everyone who has gotten there ahead of you got there this way.<\/p>\n

\u2014Agent KillFee<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

dearartdirector: This is both a really personal, and also a really universal issue. Let me answer you in a bit of stream of consciousness here, bear with me. 1\u2014\u201dBreaking thru\u201d and\u00a0\u201cBig Deal\u201d are completely arbitrary concepts, depending entirely on your POV. I am friends with artists who were (and still are) heroes to me. They\u2019re … Continue reading Dear ADs, I am a working artist who has not ‘broken through’. I am in my mid 30’s and not yet ‘a big deal’. It’s difficult at this point to start new projects because I despair of ever reaching the career goal posts I have set for myself. I intellectually understand that I am not old, but it is hard to see artist after artist in their early 20s being lifted aloft and not judge myself as wanting in comparison. Sincerely- ‘Wasn’t cool when I was young, either’.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[618],"class_list":["post-1759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-important","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}