What drives the artist

The alarm just went off, and last night Art had made a new canvas ready for painting, it is smiling at him, inviting him to make yet another art work.
The only thing Art needs to do is step out of bed, pick up a brush and start painting.
Still, he just does not feel like getting out of bed.
And somehow he comes up are more reasons to stay in bed than with reasons to get up...

There are many thoughts:
- who is actually waiting for this newest painting, and who says it will be a great painting
- the latest paintings have not yet been sold, so no pressure
- he forgot to buy new lemon yellow paint, and who can make a painting without lemon yellow...
- if he paints he also has to wash the brushes afterwards, thoroughly, and he hates that...

Actually it is not about how many art works that you make...is it?
It is more the quality; there are quite some artists who do not have many art works but are still quite famous.
And Art already made lots of paintings, some of them are quite good, he is quite sure about it.
There are already plenty of paintings that should make him famous.
It is actually quite a miracle he has not yet become very famous, as his paintings are much better than anything he has seen...
- better than Warhol who just reproduced stuff without real emotion,
- better than Damien Hirst, who just invents shocking ideas and then pays others to make an expensive version
- better than all these video artists that just make a video of a typewriter or a screaming face
- better than these new Chinese artists, that are now sponsored by their government and have factories of people making their art works

Well, after all these thought Art yawns. He turns around and mumbles
'well, all that thinking was enough work for the day anyway, see you all tomorrow"
And with a happy smile on his face he peacefully falls asleep.

How to deal with exhibition openings

Recently Art Burshy has become more successful; he has been invited to participate in several exhibitions, he gets weekly mails inviting him for new events.
Part of these events and exhibitions are the openings or 'vernissages'.

Now, Art in general does not really like to talk to people that have no clue about art. They would raise polite questions that generally have a shockingly harsh undertone (or is this just the way Art perceives it...as an artist with too low of a self-esteem...)
- why do you make abstract art, really
>>> in fact saying "man, couldn't you just make a normal realistic painting that I can understand and show you can actually paint"
- which education did you have
>>>  do you actually have the skills to call yourself an artist
- how much did you sell
>>> who would ever buy these kind of art works
- why are your art works price in this way
>>> why would anyone pay this much for such a painting, it cant be that difficult to make this yourself, etc

But during openings Art somehow likes the sort of adoration.
He would never really admit it, but somehow when a crowd discovers that you are one of the artists, all of a sudden you have their attention.
They will start saying what they like about your art, even sort of competing in who-can-best-articulate-what-the-painting-is-about.
And then the way they look at Art...like they are ready to write down any shitty thing he says as if it is the ultimate wisdom just born from the mouth of a fantastic oracle.
It is bloody brilliant!!!

But then half way these openings he sort of has enough of it all, like an allergy that starts erupting, and he just can't stand the flatness of the remarks, the silly questions and most: people that start defending utterly stupid views.
It makes Art snap out of his 'dream' and give him the urge to become shockingly honest...go against what is expected, give up the image as the brilliant and gifted artist. Things he will say will be like:
"well - you know - actually I painted this one with my foot, and I sort of like the colours", or
"I actually hate the art works of 80% of the other artists; they don't even know how to hold a brush", or
"guys, just stop sucking up and let me know when you really want to understand modern art", or
"that's all nice, but I would prefer being at home with my wife and kids".

So Art did not really work it out yet.
And he tries to find guidelines for himself to not end up in too much of this superficial stuff, like:
"avoid exhibitions with large number of random visitors" and
"only talk to people that actually look at the paintings (and not just drinking champagne and talking)" and
"go to the toilet if the bullshit talk gets too much"

Until now this works, and somewhere deep inside Art understands that part of all this is somehow required to become known as an artist.
And he will just try to make the best of it.

Talk to me baby

Although our artist Art still feels very young he actually is middle aged.
And with that came a brand new relationship and recently as a great surprise he has become a father again.
And when people look puzzled at him when they discover this, he just replies: well, don't worry, it's not my first but my third midlife crisis by now.

So Art actually loves children, probably as they are as unadapted as himself.
But when children are this small Art somehow sees them as little aliens with many faces;
"they do not speak your language but do control your life";
"in a way they are the worst little dictators as everything in life gets organised around them, just to keep them happy."
"whenever you take care of them nothing can be planned; you can spend whole days just keeping them happy"

In addition there is this permanent threat... a sudden and perpetual attack of crying and screaming.
The worst is that these moments can often not be anticipated or explained;
from one moment of completely happiness the child all of a sudden dives into room-filling sadness,  crying, screaming and disaster.
And the worst: it can not tell you what you can do to solve it...

So this afternoon he is taking care of the boy again and...yes it happens:
at the most unexpected moment his baby-son starts to cry...and continues...and screams...and can not be comforted.
Art feels stress and frustration filling his veins, some dark red hot feeling climbing up his neck...while he tries to remain calm on the outside.
He realises it's his dark side about to take over.
If he was not and artist he would never dare to admit these things, but sometimes in these situations he feels he is out of control and like doing something to his son, scream back to him or...
Fortunately he recognises it and knows how to intervene, and then just puts the child down for a moment until his brain is taking over again...but these moments are still not his favourite, and confront him with his limitations.

So, later when everything has calmed down it makes him wonder, he can not imagine that other people never have the same.
There is really no rational reason to be angry; the child is just unhappy and is not able to explain why...so why does it create so much stress with Art...
At the same Art is now a bit older than the first time he had kids.
And he has done quite some soul-searching, especially as part of his art.
And recently he had been fascinated by the 'dark side' in people.
Behaviour that is triggered and comes up when people are under stress, depressed, furious, hurt, drunk or in other extreme mental states.
Art feels that everyone has these dark sides and some are just better in hiding it than others.

Then he looks his son in the eyes and concludes:
Well son, sure I am not perfect, but worst are the people that deny having a dark side...wow, these are really lost.

Arts memoires

Frequently I check with our cartoon 'hero' Art Burshy whether he is still okay with my cartoons.

As a true artists he replies in a grumpy sort of way, like
"shouldn't you be making a new cartoon right now" or
"great that you found a new hobby, don't bother me with the rest" or
"it is not that bad for a lower art form" or
"did we already talk about the copyright"

But in the end all these expressions are just an indirect way to show he actually likes it.
It is just that as an artist you can not be too openly supportive of cartoons, or simple humour, or marketing exposure etc. And it is also nice how he sometimes simply provides me memories and ideas for new cartoons; things that he finds funny.
Most of the times I find these 'funny' ideas not at all funny (sorry Art, if you read this, probably good to talk about this soon... or maybe not)
often these ideas are even just very rude observations,
and insulting people is not necessarily funny, is it ?

Well, all in all I absorb his 'memoires' and allow them to circle in my mind for some time, waiting for them to surface. And often after some time they come out in form of a new cartoon.
Art then often tells me things like "how have you managed to screw up that brilliant idea" or "was that really the best you could make of it"; but at the same time he shows this big grin on his face, somehow enjoying in a hidden way that he is still part of the 'creative' thinking for the cartoon.

Even better source of ideas comes from his kids; they are not yet conditioned to understand and deal with the behaviours of their father. They still raise questions that are of great value to Art, or at least " that could be of great value to Art"; if he would only listen.
The good thing for me as a writer is actually that Art does not listen, and remains the unconditioned artist that he is. Because in a way humour is about the unexpected-that-could-be-expected. It is the surprise, while still realising that you could actually have seen it coming. Well, now I am getting carried away and taking a role I should not take; the writer should remain on the background, just offering the stage to our friend Art Burshy.

Well, then just to finish with the fact that I now started on the second paper notebook, after the first one was full. A milestone I had not in mind when starting, and the drawings still come quite naturally, and often when I travel in the Thalys between Amsterdam to Paris.
I think the key thing is that "I make these cartoons primarily for myself" and as such the pleasure of drawing and thinking of fun stuff to make is very close to me; my pitfalls, reflections, observations. And therefore there are many many more topics to cover...