Art and Self-Confidence - Feeling Your Art Is Garbage

A man's praise in his own mouth stinks? But what if your art actually is good? Artists often tend to be overly self-critical and lose sight of reality ...

Self-criticism is a core requirement for being a good artist.

Sometimes when looking at one's own art it does feel great. Yet more often than not, we tend to be overly self-critical and see our weaknesses rather than our strengths. Nikolai Gogol, for example, one of the greatest writers of Russian literature, is known for burning his manuscripts, including the sequel to his famous novel Dead Souls.

In my experience so far, most artists face this struggle, be it writers, painters, musicians ...

So what can we do about it?

Art and Self-Discipline - The Struggle to Finish

Losing passion for one's creative project is just part of being creative. So don't stop. Because finishing is one of the factors that qualify you as an artist ...

Sadly, some artworks remain unfinished ...

We're always so full of energy when starting a new creative project. We have an idea and we are passionate about implementing it. We burn and burn and burn until ... until the creative project suddenly becomes a chore.

Are you one of those people experiencing this?

What Is Artistic Success?

There isn't only one way to be successful as an artist. Even though making a living through one's art and getting praise seems like a universal ideal, it is not. So what is your definition of artistic success? Here are some thoughts ...

Chaliapin was an extremely successful opera singer. And for a reason!
He indeed was very talented and had a beautiful voice.

There are artists and artists. Some are considered successful, but in reality are unhappy. Some are unknown, but happy. Some can pay their bills from what they earn. Some don't earn anything. Some dream of worldwide fame, but never get it. Some don't even think about getting famous, but they get "discovered". Some have talent, others not really. Some love their art, others think it's never good enough.

Art Is Travel - Planning vs. Spontaneity

Is it better to plan ahead or just start creating and see what happens? Different artists choose different paths, and sometimes we don't even have a choice ...

The best way to travel is going to see what you want with enough room for unexpected detours and adventures.

When I started this blog back in 2015 I typed "art is" into the Google search field and then wrote down Google's suggestions for how to continue this sentence. One suggestion was:

"Art is travel."

I love this idea. No matter what kind of art we create - we always go on a journey to discover something new, to push our limits and to come back as a new person. And, just like with literal travel, you can organize your artistic travel in two ways:

You can either

• plan every single step and have the exact result you want, or
• make no plans at all and just enjoy the surprise of where your feet decide to carry you.

Why Do We Create Art? - What an Overdose of Caffeine Has Taught Me About Art

A caffeine overdose has taught me that writing is my reason to live.

About two years ago there was a day when I had too much caffeine. I suffered from insomnia and to fix my inability to concentrate I was taking caffeine pills and drank much coffee; additionally, I was stressed and depressed which resulted in lost control over the amount of caffeine I consumed. So when night fell I experienced the worst caffeine shock of my life.

To say I couldn't sleep would be an understatement. Even though with my brain I knew my symptoms weren't that dangerous (compared to the symptoms people actually die from) I still had a really bad anxiety attack. Well, it wasn't that bad that I lost control over myself. In fact, I was still pretty capable of pondering about whether I could handle it myself or whether I should call the ambulance. And in the end it all turned out very well for me: I didn't need any medical help, I somehow managed to force myself to lie down and wait all night until the anxiety ebbed away and I didn't consume more caffeine than one cup of coffee or black tea per day ever since.

So what does this life lesson have to do with art? Well, while half of my brain was still functional and allowed me to reflect on my condition the other half was convinced I would drop dead any minute. I had that instinctive, savage fear we usually have when facing serious danger. So my state was a bit like standing in a burning house with all your senses telling you you're going to die while with your brain still understanding that the burning house is only an illusion. The animal inside wants to run for safety while the brain knows you only have to wait.

Art and Academic Education - Why Artists Should Study

Education is one of the best sources for inspiration and innovation.

Last week I've published a video explaining the Typological Model of Narrative Situations by Franz Karl Stanzel, one of the most important theories in narratology and part of the basics in literary studies. At least, this is the case for Germany.

Well, in that video I mentioned something my senseis at university would have hated me for: I said that knowing this model is important for both readers and authors, since it helps us to understand literature better as well as to write our own prose. The "problem" with this statement is that literary studies are about analyzing texts and not about giving guidance how to write them. And yet ... One of the reasons why I've studied literature is that I wanted to learn the depths of this art genre in order to improve my own writing.

As far as I'm concerned, in the US you can actually study creative writing. In Germany you can't. Over here you can "only" become a highly educated scholar who has spent years researching great masterpieces of literature and their historical and cultural contexts. Yet I don't believe I've missed anything. In fact, I believe that studying literature helped me more that studying creative writing would have.

Learning by Analyzing

When learning any art the best thing you can possibly do is to learn from the masters. And the best way to learn from the masters is to analyze their artworks: How did they achieve a certain effect? What do they do to convey emotions? How do they structure their artworks? And so on ...

Art and Ambition - A Wish Upon an Eclipse

The most important wish of all is not to lose sight of one's dreams.

September 2016 is an eclipse season. Astrologers say that these constellations of sun and moon bring big changes, especially to the signs affected by them. Both the solar and the lunar eclipse in September are either in or opposite Virgo, the sun sign of this blog (as September 17th is its birthday) and my own ascendant. In other words: Apparently it's my chance to make wishes. This is why I decided to write this rather unusual post.

So what does an aspiring artist and blogger wish for?

Make Art, Not Procrastination! - 10 Tips to Overcome a Creative Block

Step 1: Go to wherever you usually work.

Step 2: Get started.

Procrastination ... It follows us everywhere, and sometimes it haunts us even when we're doing something we enjoy. I think the only thing you can't procrastinate is watching cat videos on YouTube. And as an artist, you can procrastinate art. In fact, I believe that a creative block is nothing else than procrastination. Just plain, banal procrastination. So just erase this romantic "creative block" euphemism from your vocabulary. It's procrastination. And in order to overcome it you have to treat it as procrastination.

You don't believe me? Well, this is how I experience a "creative block": First I notice that I didn't write anything for a long time. I don't really feel like writing, I haven't been feeling like writing for weeks, but I don't wait for "inspiration", open the file and stare at the white space. My head feels numb and squeezing out words from my brain feels just as reasonable as trying to squeeze toothpaste from an empty tube. All depressed because of the failure I decide to make a pause and watch cat videos on YouTube. I watch and watch and watch until I realize that it's time to go to bed. Nonetheless I open my file, hoping that "inspiration" will come, since night is its favourite time of day. Yet after staring at the empty space for some more time I call it a day and hope that tomorrow it'll be better. But the story just repeats itself.

Rules vs. Artistic Freedom - Why Perfection Is Boring

The only rule in art is that there are no rules.

If you ever joined an artist community you surely came across people crusading for the one and only true faith in the world of art: rules. People who criticize those who dare to disobey conventions, those who don't do what they consider "good" art. And maybe you're even one of these people. Maybe you're extremely annoyed by all these kids who justify their obvious mistakes with "artistic freedom". Hell, I've even seen amateur writers defending their spelling mistakes with this argument!

So how many rules are necessary and how much freedom is allowed?

Art and PR - Why an Artist Needs Boldness to Be Successful

Shyness and modesty are very likely to become the death of an artist's career.

Right now it's a very personal matter. This is a very "young" blog, and I've started enough internet projects in my past to know that it takes much time and patience until it'll get at least a very little bit of attention. That I don't get many clicks and comments right now is actually what is to be expected, especially considering that I didn't do much PR for this blog. I should be rather surprised and happy that it actually got a few clicks without me doing anything.

It isn't like I don't have any ideas for how to promote my blog. I have more of them than time for implementation. The reason why I didn't do much so far is that I'm afraid like a total newbie. My train of thoughts is like this: "I've just started, there isn't much content yet, I'm still trying to figure out what works and what doesn't, so there isn't much I can offer to potential readers." To make it short: I'm afraid of getting readers while my blog is still in a beginning state.

Artists and Feedback - The Eternal Lecture of Feedback Tides

If you don't even know whether there's anyone out there even noticing your existence
it's really hard to remain self-confident.

Not to get any feedback for your art is depressing. And it's even more depressing if it happens after a phase when you could almost swim in feedback. I publish my written works since 2004 on the internet, so I had much time to observe my emotional reactions to feedback in different situations.

Of course my subjective feelings can't be applied to everyone. Yet I've noticed - and other artists may have noticed it as well - that not only the quality and quantity of feedback for a particular artwork play a role but also the artist's own attitude towards that artwork and how much feedback the artist gets in general.

Personally I've went through many emotional phases: