Danny Gregory’s new book The Creative License came today. It’s got lots of energetic advice and wisdom about drawing and making stuff because you like to. Something to remember in these benighted times.

Of course, doing things for other reasons is sometimes good too. I got an email from Watershed asking me to request tickets for my guests for the Electric December opening night, which has been a great opening for me into doing more animation and stuff and has helped showcase a bunch of talents I didn’t previously know I had (tho’ I had used Flash before, there was a lot to learn). I still look on it as a learning experience rather than as an artistic success, but I’m glad I did it. There are lots of reasons to do things, and they all might lead to some sort oof satisfactory outcome. I guess that Gregory’s book leads to the engagement with the visual that drawing brings: that’s a huge area to engage with, encompassing most of our waking life and lots of areas of opportunity. It reminds me also of what Mike Nichols was writing in the Blue Notebook about his career as an illustrator being subject to fashion. Most successful artists are subject to fashion, except real megastars. That’s the truth of it for most of us, so we should have other kinds of success to enjoy: the pecuniary success that can come from the type of success that  being fashionable can bring isn’t enough on its own, even if we ever do achieve it. Better to have enjoyed one’s journey: better to have enjoyed the integrity of the things you’ve done. (Not to disparage what’s fashionable, but as a motive it can’t compete for long-term satisfaction). (Aside, though, what if one’s long-term goal was to follow fashion, with insight and integrity: what if that was your journey? Could it then provide the nourishment that the more ‘rootsy’ creativity I seem to be talking about seems to?)

Still plugging away on the Scarry book. I’ll have a few more comments and a wrapup to do with what was actually useful in a week or so.