The nature of an artist

A simple definition of an artist is “one who creates art”.  Of course, this is also a useless definition.  Good definition or no, there is, I think, a quintessentially true statement that can be made of all artists.

I have often marvelled at the ability of artists to take a simple, passing thought — some minor, inconsequential glimmer of an idea — and to work that thought as a potter works a piece of clay, creating something three dimensional and substantial out of a formless lump.  It is this wilfull or inspired persistence that I think characterizes an artist most of all.

With respect to the art of writing, I recently heard Stuart McLean on his outstanding radio show The Vinyl Café say that ideas are the easy part.  Ideas are a dime a dozen.  The difficult part is doing the writing.  I agree.  Ideas are a dime a dozen.  I have ideas go through my head all the time every day.  Most of the time, though they’re only half formed thoughts and they slip away as easily as they came.  Sometimes, I think to myself “that’s interesting”, but don’t know where to take it or how to work with it, or don’t recognize any value in the thought at all.

Consider someone like Rob Schneider, the creator of the SNL ‘makin’ the copies’ character.  Don’t remember?  Let me refresh your memory:

Hey, John!  Big John!  Johnny!  Johnny boy!  The John-meister!  Johnny-a-tolla!  Watcha doin’?  Makin’ the copies.  Copyin’ the papers.  Makin’ the copies for that big presentation!  Gonna be a big-shot.  Big-shot Johnny!  [etc….]

Remember now?  Every skit was basically the same, yet that character persisted for a long time on the SNL scene and it’s influence on popular culture was viral.  For a time, everybody talked like him to get a chuckle out of their friends.  The idea for a character like that was simple and stupid and, for someone like me, would have been dismissed out of hand for lack of substance.  But Rob Schneider was able to take that kernel of an idea and nurture it into something substantial.  Very substantial if popular culture is anything to go by.

If you can do that — take a kernel of a thought and work at it and fill it out until it lives and breathes — you are an artist.  Make no mistake, it is work.  It’s hard, brain-bending work.  Not the same kind of hard work as slinging burgers or doing highway construction, to be sure, but it does take a certain dedication and adherence to an ideal that not everyone possesses.  Artists suffer in their own way.

I used to think that a good writer would simply write and what came out was in a publishable state.  Easy money if you were good at it.  In listening to Stuart McLean’s speil on writing, however, I realize that even someone like him, who is very skilled and whom I have an immense respect for, has to work at his stories.  He writes a first draft.  Then he rewrites it two or three times until he has something that he thinks he can show his editor.  Then his editor has a go at it and makes suggestions for changes until it’s ready for his producer to look at.  After it’s gone through all of those revisions, only then is it ready to be taken to prime-time radio or published form.  That’s a lot of work, and a lot of dedication to an idea that may have started as something small and inconsequential.  What comes out the other end of the process, however, has been nurtured over and over until it is finally a mature and outstanding piece of writing.

I don’t consider myself an artist — yet.  I mean, I’m trying.  I’m endeavouring to grab these random little thoughts I have and wrestle them into something more substantial.  It’s not easy at all.  I’m not skilled yet at molding those little bits of clay into something that will metaphorically hold water.  But this blog is my practising ground for that very thing.  And you, kind friend, are one of my guinea pigs.  If you like what you read — or don’t — please comment honestly.  My greatest aspiration is to become a published author (outside of the internet).