Jack of all trades (or at least some relevant ones)
I love receiving Seth Godin’s daily updates in my inbox, and usually find myself in agreement with his “pull the rug out from under conventional thought” approach, but today I’m not so in tune with him.
Today, Seth argues that it makes sense to become a master of just one trade, a Chai Wallah as he puts it. Of course I’m a big fan of spiced tea, but I’m also a huge fan of the potential the internet gives artists to develop skills that in the past had to be relinquished to gatekeepers, trendsetters and those with skills and (often) expensive equipment and resources.
Today artists have cheap (and even free!) access to a plethora of tools and resources that mean we can choose to be publishers, PR executives, gallery owners, designers and broadcasters. There are free blogs such as Blogger and Wordpress, to get out messages out there, there’s Blurb and Lulu to allow us to become publishers. There’s Youtube and Vimeo, and Blip.tv, AudioBoo and Audacity, Moo and Flickr and ImageKind. There’s even a free version of Photoshop over on Photoshop.com. The list goes on, and on and on and on.
Surely, as imaginative, artists, better placed than many to think outside the box, we would be really missing a trick if we ignored all this potential and just concentrated on one skill. Wonderful if you are a talented illustrator, but wouldn’t it be better if you could publish (and have people buy) your work without having to wait for a commission or an agent or publisher to say “yes” to your fabulous book idea? Why concentrate on painting those huge canvases and hoping a gallery own will pick them up, when you could reach out directly to your potential clients, and keep the create power (and money) in your own hands. I love the fact that I’ve learnt to draw, design and print my own work, and then find different ways to offer it to anyone interested.
Which trades would you like to be master of?
I also love that I can buy books, art, music online, from self-published artists and know that my money goes to them. To the person making the something.
Yes, recordlabels and publishers do work to, but this is the same type of work for every book and every album and I honestly doubt that they put their hearts in like most self-publishing artists do.
I also doubt that creative people can stick to one thing, and one thing only… Their minds usually wander
As artists we have always had to wear many hats and acquire additional skills to our main practice. Successful artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin are very much in control of their work and have always done various things. I recall going in the mid 90s to the tiny shop Tracey Emin had set up as a museum for her work. In the shop were a collection of Emin’s mono prints and in the centre was her famous tent, the work ‘Everyone I have ever slept with.’ Emin was present all day every day. She carried out work in the ‘museum’ and shared various stories of how she became an artist. The fantasy of an artist working away in the studio who is somehow discovered by some gallery owner and doesn’t have to do anything but make the work is the fantasy of first year art college students. It is the lot of the artist to learn to master the various trades and skills we need to promote our work. With the advent of the web those skills are more accessible and for that I am very grateful as I suck at the traditional forms of marketing and promotion.
I have a professional artist friend who, when I asked him if he was (just simply) blogging, said that he hadn’t gotten around to it yet (although his wife set up a Facebook fan page for him). While he is an amazing artist in his own right, but I cannot begin to think that he will be successful except through serendipitous means if he fails to broaden his skill set to include the all-important self-promotion that comes through our online world.
Thanks, Michael, for a thought-provoking post today. Seth can’t always be right.
While I do admire artists who focus all their efforts toward mastering one thing, I could never see myself being one of these people. I think it just comes naturally to some of us – being a jack-of-all-trades. And really, no one is a “jack-of-ALL trades,” usually just a HANDFUL-of-trades.
Nice post. Thanks.
I agree with the idea of jack of all trades. Being multiskilled has saved me numerous times. I feel like if I place all of my focus on one thing I’m afraid I may paint myself into a corner.
“I also doubt that creative people can stick to one thing, and one thing only… Their minds usually wander.” I agree Tanja that is deffinitely me
I could never stick to one type of art. I love trying new things.
I would love to learn how to use Photoshop. I’ve had it for two years and cannot figure it out.
I like the idea of being a jack of all trades but i feel as though having a focus helps me to progress. I would like to be master of a few trades such as paper cutting, illustrating, photography and hand drawn type and having these skills that i would like to develop narrows down my focus but i still dabble in other things as i always like to learn new things.
[...] post was inspired by a 3-year old kvetch of mine, Michael Nobbs’ recent post on a similar note, and the post by Seth Godin that inspired [...]