Art, and the Artist’s Ego

I had an interesting discussion the other day. I stated that without the artist’s ego, there would be no art, and who would create anything if they thought no one would look at it?

There was immediate disagreement and counter argument that the joy is in creating itself. And if the artist creates what others like rather that what he likes then is it really art? I don’t entirely disagree with either of these statements.

I am very much aware of artists who go “commercial,” and create what is popular with the masses. I see that every day in crap TV programs, movies, and music. I appreciate when artists create what they believe in. Without a pioneer spirit nothing new would be created.

However, the original statement was concerned with the artist’s ego, and one has to look closely at the word “Ego.” We are often taught that to have an ego is a bad thing, but I look at the dictionary definition and it means “Self-esteem,” a person’s sense of worth.

On the other hand, there is the word “Egotist,” which means “Self-Centered,” is definitely not a good thing. Initially, artists create for their own gratification, the joy of looking at what they have done.

Does this joy not come from the boost to their self-esteem or ego? Who does not step back and look at their work and say to themselves, “Look at what I have done here, I am a pretty clever fellow?”

There comes a point however, where one must move on from this self-gratification and seek validation from others. This validation may not be immediately forthcoming, and this is where it is important for the artist to continue with what he truly believes in.

This is not always easy for the performing artist, musician, singer/songwriter, actor, or comedian. By nature of their art, they must have an audience, validation from others. And ultimately so must every other artist, be they painter, sculptor, or writer. What would be to point in my writing here if no one read it?

The artist always treads a fine line between pleasing themselves and pleasing others. Sometimes originality is so original that only the artist understands. They can carry on, hoping their audience will eventually “Get it.” Or they can tweak their art, so others do understand and see value in it, without completely “Selling out.” 

There are many people who create for no other reason than their own relaxation. They draw or paint or write in private journals with no intention of sharing. No one is obligated to share what they create.

However, does the art have value? And to know that one must have the validation of other people. People will spend money on your art, and they will tell other people. “You must read this book.” Or “Have you heard this song,” that is validation.

And it is the validation of an artist’s work by others, and especially input from his peers that enables an artist to grow, and create even better things.

What are your views?

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What advice would I give a young artist today?

I recently watched a Bill Maher video where he talked about the issue that back in the 1990s someone had the brilliant idea that one should not just reward excellence but give everyone a trophy just for participating. In addition to this kids were told they could be anything they desired, simply by wishing it were so.

The result is we have a generation of young people who all want to be celebrities and cannot understand why they are not. Yes, one must believe in themselves and their ability to achieve success, but it takes time, often years of practice and repetition, and only then if one has something called “Talent”.

Life is a journey, and the journey means more than the destination. You don’t climb a mountain and say, “Damn this is hard work, but it will be worth it when I get to the top and see that wonderful view,” What if you took a cable-car or a helicopter to the summit. You would have the exact same view, but there would be no sense of achievement in getting there.

Likewise, you don’t say, “Damn this is hard work but when I become a star or a celebrity, then I’ll be happy.” Happiness is a choice; it does not require fame or fortune. There are poor people who are happy, and rich people who are miserable. Life is a journey, happiness is the means of travel, not the destination.

Don’t say, I am miserable because I have no friends. No, you have no friends because you are miserable. No one wants to be around miserable people. Be happy without friends, and friends will be drawn to you. If your happiness is reliant on the approval of others, you leave your self open to be controlled by others. How can you be happy without friends, well smile for a start, fake it? People will soon begin to wonder what you have to smile about.

Get in touch with your inner self. What is that? Remember when you were 5,6 or 7? The thoughts you had, was that not the same person that does the thinking now? Even though you look different in the mirror. That is your inner self. It is that which never changes throughout your entire life.

While you are at it, get in touch with Nature. For there is but one creative source, and artists are merely the vehicle through which art appears. The Native American called it “Hand Magic.” The Great Spirt guiding the artist’s hand as he made the pottery or wove a blanket. Everything in Nature is beautiful, if the artist is connected to Nature through their inner self, he or she will create beautiful art. It doesn’t matter if it is painting or sculpture, creative writing or songwriting, singing or acting. It is all art.

All art forms have a craft side. Tried and true ways of doing something. These can be learned from books, classes or even YouTube videos. Once you learn the craft, it depends on practice, repetition, and in the end Talent. Talent I believe is that connection with Nature, the Great Spirit. Some are born with it and often don’t even know it. Others have to find it, but it is there to be found.  

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Why Write?

I have been an artist most of my life, I have painted pictures and created functional art in the form of racing bicycle frames.

The greatest gift my mother ever bestowed on me was that she encouraged me as a child to draw and paint pictures, and to engage in simple craft projects.

She would tell her friends how good I was with my hands, and she would show them what I had made.

She would do this in my presence, which boosted my self-esteem, and left me with a feeling that there was nothing I couldn’t make with my hands, given the time and the resources.

I get high on creativity, high on the feeling of euphoria when I step back and look at what I have created. Like a junkie there came a time when the art I created no longer gave me that high. I needed a better fix, so I turned to writing and songwriting.

It is one thing to apply paint to canvas and create a picture, or to assemble pieces of metal and make a solid object. But to assemble words on paper, a computer screen or even in your head, to me is the ultimate form of creativity. It is truly creating something out of nothing, pulling something out of the air, so to speak.

Songwriting takes this a step further because you are pulling musical notes out of the air and adding to the words. Paul McCartney was once asked if he got a thrill from hearing his music performed by other artists. He replied that the biggest thrill he got was from walking down the street and hearing someone singing or whistling one of his songs.

Most of us will never see firsthand the work of Michael Angelo or an original Picasso and if we do it will only be for a moment. But the written word or recorded music can be shared by anyone, even for free. No one will charge you a fee to sing a Beatles song in your shower.

Language is the greatest gift given to humankind, it is what sets us apart from the animals. Animals have feelings, they feel happiness, grief, and anger but cannot express those feelings to others the way we can. I can assemble words, and if I do it right, can make others laugh or cry, or bring out other emotions, just by hearing or reading those words. 

I can paint pictures with words, pictures far more vivid and real than I could ever paint on canvas. And the picture I paint will be different for each individual. I remember as a child listening to plays on the radio. The scenes I saw in my mind were real because they took place in my house and my neighborhood. I was in the scene, not on the outside looking in as I would be viewing a movie or television. 

Through my writing I can re-live my life, I can do the things I wish I’d done and say the things I wish I’d said. Writing is wonderful therapy and the question I often ask myself as I finish something, is "Am I a better person for having written this?" If the answer is "yes" then it is a reward in itself.

Writing satisfies the need I have to create. If someone else learns something, is made to think, or is simply entertained then that is the extra scoop of ice cream on my apple pie.

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Hand Magic

In the mid-1990s I met a Native American from the Coquille Indian Tribe in Oregon. He told me about “Hand Magic.”

Native Americans view themselves as a part of Nature, not separate from it. Their belief is that there is but one creative source, and man is just the vehicle through which art appears. In much the same way as a bird builds a nest, or ants build an ant hill.

When it comes to humans the Native American calls this “Hand Magic,” The Great Spirit guiding the artist’s hand through the mind and creating a piece of pottery, a blanket or some other object.

In the Middle Ages in England as in the rest of Europe men built houses with the minimum of planning or measuring. Just as there is very little planning or measuring in a piece of Indian pottery or weaving.

Today these old crooked thatched roofed cottages still stand and the blend perfectly into the surrounding landscape. They actually add to the beauty of the English countryside.

I have come to realize only man is capable of creating ugliness. A man builds a barn in a field and paints it red, it is ugly, a blight on the environment. But as Nature takes over and the barn becomes derelict it becomes a thing of beauty. People come to photograph it, and artists paint it on canvas. (Above.)

Everything in Nature is beautiful, and if the artist is connected to this Spirit within as he/she creates, the art cannot help but be beautiful.

I have not always subscribed to this thinking, but over the years as I built bicycle frames it became an automatic process, second nature, so to speak.

Metal expands and contracts when it is heated then cools again. In time, through repetition, I knew which way the frame would distort and would actually start brazing with the frame out of alignment so it would be in alignment after it cooled.

The amount the frame was out of line at the start of the process was not a measured amount, it was an amount determined by eye, a feeling if you will.

After a frame was brazed and had cooled it was checked on a surface table and measured with a dial indicator. The frames were always within ten or fifteen thousandth of an inch and therefore required a minimum of cold setting to achieve the final alignment.

In my early years as a frame builder I had also made ornamental iron work, and had painted pictures in oils. When I left the bike business, I was aware that whatever it was within my makeup that allowed me to successfully build bicycle frames, would allow me to embark on other creative endeavors.

Meeting that old Coquille Indian in Oregon confirmed what I had begun to figure out for myself. Now as a writer and songwriter, I believe as many other songwriters do that songs are already written and songwriters just pick them out of the air as they float by.

Some reading this will dismiss it as “New Age” bullshit, and that is okay because thirty or forty years ago I would have done the same.

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Perfectionism

Sometimes a person will say to me, “I am a perfectionist.” They say it with pride as if perfectionism is a virtue.

Perfectionism is a curse that will bring nothing but misery to the perfectionist and those around them.

It is a personality trait that goes hand in hand with low self-esteem.

Why? Because one can never achieve perfection, therefore you are always a loser.

My own perfectionism led to my success as a frame builder but self-hatred and anger as a person. My perfectionism was caused by abuse not only from my father but by the British school system, a system that beat down kids, and used sarcasm and ridicule as well as physical abuse. If you have seen the Pink Floyd movie “The Wall” you will know what I mean. That movie touched me deeply and helped me understand later what was going on.

I believe the reason all the great music came out of Britain in the 1960s was because of our childhood during WWII and the school system in place at the time. I was just another child of that era whose creativity went in a different direction. But for the fact my anger was directed towards myself I could have just as easily gone a different direction. Had my anger been directed towards others I could have become a violent criminal as many of my generation did. This forms the basis for my novel Prodigal Child It is a work of fiction, a story of what my life might have been had it taken a different turn early on.

As a child I was never given credit for doing well, only punished for doing wrong. As an adult I continued with the self-punishment if I screwed up and I would not tolerate anything but perfection from myself. This led to success as an artist, but failure in every other aspect of my life. Many times in my early days as a framebuilder I would take a hammer and destroy a frame because of some minor flaw. Afterwards I would sit and cry like a child, then work all night to replace the frame. This was my punishment for screwing up.

By the late 1980s my second marriage failed and I realized I needed to change. I was not always a pleasant person to be around. The sheet rock on the walls of my frame shop was full of the impressions of tools I had thrown across the room in a temper tantrum. The anger was always directed at myself never others, but those around me had to witness and listen to this. I knew I had to change, for my own sake as well as others. I started to look deep within myself to see why I was the way I was.

By the early 1990s the bike business had also changed. Bicycle dealers almost overnight it seemed were switching from road bikes to mountain bikes. By 1993 I knew it was time to leave and there was one incident that I think helped push me over the edge. A customer called me saying his Fuso Lux frame he had bought had a tiny bubble in the Columbus decal. Columbus decals were always a pain because of the material they were made from caused them to bubble when the paint was being baked in the paint oven. This is why you don’t see a Columbus decal on a custom ‘dave moulton’ frame. 

I told the customer to send the frame back. When it arrived the “bubble” in the Columbus decal was buried deep within the clear coats and was so tiny you almost needed a magnifying glass to see it. I stood there looking at it, seething with anger. I had finally come to terms with my own perfectionism, but still had to deal with the perfectionism of others. This customer expected me to repaint this frame and there was no guarantee if I did that the Columbus decal would be any different, and maybe it would be even worse.

The frame was in a vise held across the bottom bracket faces. If a fit of rage I grabbed the head tube and folded the frame in two with the head tube ending up next to the rear drop-outs. This time I did not cry, I did not stay up a night building a replacement. Instead I walked into my office and wrote the customer a check for the full retail value of the frame. I attached the check to the frame with scotch tape, threw it in the box and shipped it back. I never heard from him again.

As well as coming to terms with my perfectionism I realized that all creativity comes from the same source. It is not a right brain, left brain thing, it comes from deep within the artist, his soul or very being. The artist is simply a vehicle through which art appears. Because all art comes from the same source, all art is the same and if I had been successful in one art form, I could do so in another. This is why I was able to leave the bike business and take up writing and songwriting. If I screw up in writing unlike frame building it’s easily fixed in a rewrite.

Writing has been great therapy for me, better to get all this shit out than to hold it inside. Which is exactly what I am doing now so thank you for allowing me to indulge myself.

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