How do you know if you're a good artist? I don't mean good as in ethical or empathetic or nice, but creating good work.
How could you possibly know that? The mirror in your home presents a question mark, nothing more.
First, you want to look at what's being unsaid. Don't people tell you how they remember a work of yours from yesteryear? Haven't you received heartfelt feedback from your students? Won't your more successful colleagues ask you to collaborate? Do people talk about nice, not deep things in your presence?
Then, try not think what's being said. When you're being introduced to someone and they tell you they know you, it means you're hot shit, not that your works are good. If people write about your work without saying anything specific about the actual pieces but concentrate on your personality instead, probably you are not even doing art anymore but trading in hype. And if older artists mention you as an exciting new name, consider what they want from you, because they sure aren't interested in your craft.
If you are good-looking in a normative way, if you come from money, or if you're easy around people, you'll never truly know. A recipe for paranoia you might think. But you can't be too paranoid. Only if you're dead and there's afterlife, you might get to see if people say good things about your artistic practice in earnest. Even so, you'd be right to suspect you're being canonized only because a dead artist is a safe bet for admiration. The work might still be bad.
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| Kim Modig: Mapping (2017) |
2.
Why do you have time to wonder if you're good or not? Don't you have work to do?
We both know this is the work. People say most of our time as artists now goes to applying for things, updating our resumé, or promoting ourselves in social media. But what about doubt? How much time does doubt take per week?
It eats your time especially if you had to fight hard to come through. You will always have more work to do, because people see you had to break sweat to be here: No one likes visible effort outside sports so you drudge up the past labor. You put in extra hours to the the work of looking effortless.
If you're taking it easy, you probably have less work to begin with. When the day is done, you don't face the laundry pile of racism, sexism, or ableism. No one talked down at you today, misgendered you, or made you concsious of your body's unfitness to the rigid norms of this world. You never doubt if you are able to do something or not. You, as the adage of our times goes, just do it.
3.
If the axis of good or bad seems as repressing as any other dividing line, you may want to search for life outside its influence.
You become a hobbyist, performing your most convincing carnivalesque laughter at the fools who still grind away in the binary reality, begging for legitimization. When everyone else is hard at work proving their value, you do what pleases you. These things are done for the sole reason and wanting to pass the time in a pleasant way. There's no sense of getting better. Nothing goes anywhere because everywhere would be the same.
This is the small town aesthetic. Its downside is social control. Trying too hard rewards punishment. You won't be celebrated but shunned for your victories. Progression is off limits.
Music scenes often work like this, as well. One could say it's not a weakness, but a strength that makes it easier for everyone, for newcomers and veterans alike. Doing your thing is enough, as long as you're OK with unspoken rules and social norms that are reified as nonchalant clothing sense, rugged instruments, aimless songs, and, more often than not, copious amounts of alcohol.
4.
So you move to a bigger city, or look for a more competitive scene because you want the very best in the exchange of ideas. You want to take art seriously.
You meet a master who tells you they don't have any idea if what they do is good or not. The audience, or some random event like a critic defending the work to no end, will make or break the work regardless of your hopes and fears.
The master tells you about intuition and energies. Nothing else to it, they quip.
They don't need to think about good or bad because they're in a position where other people will do it for them.
In art, we like to place some people at positions where they can do exactly what they want and make other people follow their instructions to the t, because we think this is how quality gets made. When the chosen ones bore us, we give their seats to someone new, someone as audacious but who sings a different tune. The number of seats seem to never increase. It must be we like to know who is the best and who are the not good ones.
5.
Even when there are no prizes to be won or seats to fill, why do some people end up worrying if they're good artists when others don't?
If you've been encouraged all your life and told you can do everything and nice-paying opportunities have appeared from thin air, it might have never crossed your mind to question your abilities. That is the gist of privilege.
Strong self-esteem and being presented with opportunities also feed each other. You believe in yourself because people tell you so; but they say you're good because you radiate self-worth. This feedback loop gives famous people who release cookbooks, direct films, start cosmetic companies, star in everything. The doubtful recognize the good.
The people who worry about their worth will do so even at the top of the world. When doubt comes knocking, it moves in and never leaves. The only way to keep it at bay is to be around the good ones. But eventually you need to go back home.
5.
Are you a good artist? What do you think?
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| Books (pic by me) |