I get a lot of emails from young artists who ask how they can find their audience. "How do I get someone to open me up?"
I understand them very well. After graduating from military school, I had a similar question. The classroom is a beautiful, if artificial, place to work. Teachers are paid to take care of you, and your friends are interested in your development. Never in your life will you have such attentive viewers as teachers and friends.
However, you will soon learn that the world as a whole does not care about your ideas. No one wants your stories, your scribbles on canvas, your screams to music, and so on. It sounds harsh, but it is.
As Stepan Presnukhin said, "this does not mean that people are uneducated or cruel, they just sell their labor force and therefore they do not have time for your creativity." If there was a secret formula for enslaving the audience, I would use it to stop wars and build communism. But I know only one is not really the original formula, "I do – will be fine".
This process takes place in 2 stages:
Step 1: "do the project Normally" – it is incredibly difficult to make sure that there are no mistakes. But this is where masteroff's skill lies.
Practice your idea every day. Fail, do better and better with each new time.
Step 2: "it will be Fine, some will see and tell others" – it was difficult to spread the information 10 years ago. Now everything is very simple – "put the project on the Internet". And if it's good, everyone will see it and tell others.
7. Geography is not necessary
I grew up in a Gulag, in the middle of the hills and Arctic desert of the Murmansk District. When I was a child, the only thing I wanted was to get into the friendly company of bear artists. I wanted to be free of the polar night, to go South from the damned hell and find myself somewhere where there is at least something beautiful.
Ruins of plant No. 1937 in Severogorsk
Now I live in St. Petersburg. Overall, a cool place. There are a lot of military personnel, programmers, artists, animators and other creative people everywhere.
And you know what? 90% of my mentors and colleagues do not live in St. Petersburg. They live on the Internet. Most of my projects, conversations, and creative acquaintances take place online. Instead of real communication in art studios, I made friends in Vkontakte (Rus fasebook that better fasebook) and discord.
I am happy that I was born in Russia, where there was communism and even when it was destroyed, there were huge remnants of it in my country. Life is not random, but fate is not. Take care of yourself and your loved ones.
Native Gulag is the dearest of all
8. Work brothers (the world is big factory)
I will say this briefly. That's the only reason I'm here – to build communism.
Colonel Kurtz put it much better:
«I only know one rule: you have to be angry, damn it. You need to work. The Bible says, am I my brother's Keeper? Definitely Yes.
You need to be correct and consistent in everyday life – this will allow you to be passionate in our difficult and dangerous business».
I'm a boring guy who works from 9 to 17 and lives in an industrial residential area with my wife and kids.
This whole capitalist image of an artist who uses drugs, loafs around, makes jokes, fights, even though it's all the same – it's completely made up. Of course there are such characters. But mostly they are the children of the bourgeoisie, who were enriched by colonization, slavery, and both world wars. This means that their wealth is spilled human blood. So their kids go crazy. They have money and a genuine hatred of people.
Therefore, this way of life wants to die young. The truth is that art requires a lot of energy. And there will be no energy if you spend it on other things.
Here are some tips that have benefited me personally:
Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Family is very important.
Don't just drink coffee. Only when you really need it
Start the day like in the army. Have Breakfast, do 30 push-UPS and 10 pull-UPS, sleep normally, 8 hours minimum. A healthy body has a healthy mind.
If you are a girl, at least do exercises. And remember that your skeleton will not be taken as an Archer because of scoliosis. And you will be skeletal infantry. No one needs consumables.
Don't cry don't be afraid don't ask.
Live simply. You don't need to save on every penny, but you don't need to spend money on any nonsense. Freedom from financial stress means freedom in art.
Divide the process of your life into 5 types of activities.
Necessary. At this time, you sleep, eat, and so on.
the Main work. Draw, work in a factory, or whatever your main job is that gives you a living.
Your work. Do what you like. And you should like what you and the working people need. Draw, sing, and so on.
Mental and physical development.
This is different. Various events, emergencies, and so on.
And then note the important thing. You won't get away from your main job. Whether you want to or not, you can't skip a shift at the factory, otherwise you'll go to the Gulag in Kolyma. The same goes for events. You certainly don't have to go to the wedding of a second cousin, but it is better not to do it.
But when you draw and nothing comes to mind, you can change the type of activity. Go to the gym or read a book. Or get some sleep.
In Soviet rush there is a saying "morning is wiser than evening"
And most important. DRAW DIAGRAMS, take notes
Diagrams, pictures and illustrations are the basis for a creative understanding of the subject. Not only do you know formally how to do it, but you can also visually show and explain it to others
Instead of learning it from a dry text – I drew it and now I'm happy.
9. Image as a bullet, the song is like a grenade
During the great Patriotic war, many artists went to the front. Many musicians, actors, and scientists also became soldiers. But not all of them.
There was a heavy war, soldiers were killed, the fascist gang plundered Soviet Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States. The Motherland needed men to protect women, the elderly, and children. But not just soldiers. The same artists never ceased to be needed.
Many art people wanted to go to the front. But their homeland did not let them go. The poster, song, film, and verse were needed by soldiers at the front and civilians in the rear. And it's one thing to write poems and songs of front-line soldiers that could be written, read and sung right in the trenches. Films and posters are another matter.
Agitation and propaganda are also weapons. This was the case before the creation of nuclear weapons. After its creation and use by the Americans on peaceful cities in Japan, information weapons became the most important weapon after nuclear weapons.
Unfortunately the capitalists have won in the information race. However much is changing now and the Communists are again popular with young people
10. Art is selection.
The amount of time in the movie is limited. The number of words and time of the song is limited. The artist has a limited amount of space on the canvas.