litterbugger

I've been... busy. Yeah, busy just about covers it.

I'm not sure why or how it happened, it's just been one of those watershed kind of months where, counter to what my lack of freelance work is telling me, opportunity just seems to be EVERYWHERE. It's a little scary - I have a lot of choices to make and I'm letting my hind-brain make an awful lot of them.

I've signed on for the Noah Bradley Artcamp - a twelve week online course that will rocket me from enthusiastically untrained to drilled and enthusiastically unstoppable. 'Better' I guess is for you people to decide, but I've been wanting to take an online course for ages; I just thought I'd do it when I had a) time and b) money. And last week my hind-brain decided that the time is apparently now. I've been busy as hell since.

Other things - more personal things - have been popping up to in a 'Pick me! Pick me!' sort of fashion and I feel like a single mom rushing between triplets. I'm trying and repeatedly failing to institute a get-up-early rule. I'll get there, but probably when I have to.

Again, not sure why the sudden enthusiasm for personal projects. It's great - it's wonderful and exactly what I've been working toward with a kind of 'fake it till you make it' enthusiasm. I'm now genuinely invested and working and happy and leveling up and it's so unusual that it's freaking me out a little.

So yeah. Sh*t just got real.

Been a while since I've written, or submitted anything much. Don't know why, just haven't had anything poking at my brain for a while. Well, that's not true, but the truth is more boring and so we gloss over.

I have in fact finished a comic that I'll be selling. A hundred and ten copies of them, if the fates are with me. The extra ten copies are to send home and abroad to interested parties. I'm very proud of my little story and the fact that it's actually printed out. It feels like a definite accomplishment, and a solid step in the right direction. Lord knows I need at least one step in a right direction; some aspects of my life are waiting on the world to change, as John Mayer puts it. I guess that explains the low energy as I write this post. It feels good to fight against the apathy and the not-knowing with something badass like a comic-book, done for the hell of it and because I can. It's a slap in the face for all the cynical little harpies in my head that bitch non-stop about how I'm just drifting instead of working, and that a 'real' artist would conduct themselves more energetically and with better forethought, that a real artist would work their ass off at something ALL the time, churning out paintings or studies or personal projects, as a couple of artist friends of mine are doing.

Well... yeah, they're right, in a way. Not in a self-justifying 'I'm a real artist because I work myself like a dog' kind of way, because when you're fighting and sniping with yourself, nobody wins. But I have to say, having a project I'm returning to daily and doing a bit all the time on it is turning out really well for the rest of me. I'm happier, my day has a sense of productivity and purpose, and generally the world has an essential rightness to it that it lacks on days that I drift through doing nothing. Even though it's a personal project and has no monetary reward, it's immensely calming and makes me hum with energy. And it scares me a little, because I break off in the middle of a good streak to blog about it.

But mostly DOING the work staves off any of the usual self-doubting crap I give myself in a given day. When you're actually doing the thing you must do, the instinctual thing you want to do - and it occurs to me it's been a long time since I knew which of my instincts were the right ones to go with - it's as if everything it all just clicks, and the tension falls away.

I've had this on my mind a few days now - hell, a few months now. My feelings on the topic of how artists are treated in a corporate setting have never been very far under the surface. Give me two minutes of your time and I'll talk your ear off about my own experiences in that area and what I've gleaned from others' stories. And now in the last few days, with the big VFX house Rhythm and Hues going down the same week as it won an Oscar (www.reddit.com/r/movies/commen…) a big chunk of new stories has arisen, and from the last place I expected - a big studio in the US. Now as a working artist here in Cape Town who has thought fondly of the idea of going to the New World to find my place in a land of dollar-rates and union protection and VAST movie projects, this comes as a bit of a puzzle to me. The biggest question on my mind being: So it's the same over there?

Yep. Seems so. It's the same there, it's the same everywhere. I'm not even going to BEGIN to go into gripes about crappy third-world vs. shiny, civilized first-world anywhere-is-better-than-here mentalities because frankly that's not where the problem lies. The problem is greater than foreign subsidies or gripes between countries about exchange rates and cheap labour and keeping it all at home and so on. Corporate mentalities suck, have done since the fifties. That's not new information, much as I love to bash on corporate monsters. The problem is respect. Respect as a finite commodity, as a gun to your head, as a thing to be held ransom. What's been weighing on my mind the passed couple of days is what might be done about this.

There are probably plans in the VFX industry over there to strike. I've no doubt that if this thing gains ground then the VFX industry in Hollywood will probably unionize, get better pay, better hours and generally give the man-machine a giant creative and financial clout like the writer's strike did a few years ago. And more power to them; I'd personally love to see some of the commentators of this article (io9.com/5987131/why-the-visual…) bitch and moan about how lacklustre shows and films are now that good VFX is harder to buy than a vital organ. Their attitude reflects exactly the disrespect working studio artists of all industries have to contend with; a disparagement of their ability to manage themselves, the real contribution their work makes, their worth as crew-members and professionals, how replaceable they seem. Unions and trade agreements are one way to earn respect, but it certainly doesn't change everything for everyone. All the money and all the promises in the world won't convince a desperate, fearful heart to step out and risk it before they're ready to. The internet can go to war about it, governments can commit millions to it - no one can make you believe in yourself before you do.

Well... the internet's good for some things. Changing people's minds for example. Changing attitudes. Educating. Myself, I've neither the resources or the training or frankly the interest in leading a full-on internet riot. I can write though, and people can read (mostly). And I have nothing I like writing about more than about my discoveries as a young artist, what I'm finding out as I grow up and work and learn. And I've learned a lot in this passed couple of years. I've learned that people suck, and that people are wonderful. Projects come and go and there will always be something happening somewhere; no one gig is the be-all and end-all. There will be dry spots. There will be assholes. There will be times of watershed where I could dance in the rain and bless the earth I walk, I'm that happy. There will be money and lots of it. And there will be short projects and long projects and a heartache project or two, because we arty ones can't learn to keep it casual. Life will happen and there's nothing really you can do to prevent it. And I've learned to believe a bit more in myself. In my art. In God. In being happy. This sounds trite and chicken-soup until you apply your survival instincts to a toxic career and watch the whiplash happen. Until you learn to accept the fact that you're doing the thing you love and YOU ARE NOT HAPPY. And then do something about it.

You don't have to play the game. You don't have to bank your whole being and what it's worth on someone else's idea. The intricacies of corporate leadership are so nefarious (at least, the ones I've encountered) precisely because they understand that so many people, artists in particular, define themselves by their work and that withholding the payoff of a compliment or a decent salary or any form of approval will translate into a message that that person isn't working hard enough for it. And so the wretched, unhappy cycle begins. My own story in gaining a personal sense of respect (and I'm not there yet, by the way) is completely unremarkable: I just had no other choice. I was black and blue and emotionally exhausted from years of hoping, trying my hardest, late nights, near-delusional with hating and motivating and driving myself onward to hit some invisible fucking deadline target. And for what? RESPECT. Respect I never got, from people who never gave a second thought about me. It still burns, let me tell you.

I've since broken away from that lifestyle and found myself a lot more stable and sane as a freelancer. I'm incredibly lucky; it took me three years, and not wholly unhappy ones, to make the decision. You want to find out what thirty years feels like, read this (www.thesfegotist.com/editorial…). Needless to say, I don't want that to be you. I want you to take responsibility for your happiness. I want you to say, out loud, what your time is worth. I want you to feel the weight of a solid, respectable piece of work in your hands. I want you to be free.

Dragons, gorgons, devils, gods, giants, chimera, griffons pegesi, serpents, heroes, mad scientists, werewolves, Frankenstein's monster, vampires, fairies, ninjas, angels, samurai, knights, princesses, elves, demons, forest gods, martial artists, monks, witches, wizards, robots, Muppets, enchantresses, barbarians, ape-men, jungle kings and queens, dinosaurs, shamen, tyrants, rebels, army troopers, vikings, aliens, masters of the elements, time-travellers, super-heroes, gypsies, gangsters, sport stars, anthropomorphic animals, pirates, 1930's-style spies, spacemen, space cowboys, normal cowboys, Native American Indians, detectives, assassins, mercenaries, zombies.

Feel free to add.

This post is not necessarily for Bobby Chiu, but I'm listening to his new book, The Perfect Bait (you should too: schoolism.com/interview.php?id…) and his modus operendi is generally one of undying evolution and positive change and optimism in the face of failure. Which kind of is what I'm thinking about lately. Lately things have been amazing: I'm working on a film and people seem to be pressing work on me from all angles, as well as terribly good food. Oddly enough, this is kind of hard for me.

My life is exploding in different and frightening directions. It's hard to understand why people want to work with me or pay me ridiculous (to me) amounts of money for relatively less work than I'm used to doing. I feel as though something bad must be about to happen. That perhaps, like some experiences I've had with the film industry, there'll turn out to be a massive sting in the tail. The way I'm treated at work is very different to what I'm used to: I'm no longer being micro-managed and living in continual fear. I'm respected as a crew-member; an expert in my field. I'm treated like an adult and it's truly awkward for me some days to accept the responsibility that comes with. The more I try deconstruct this mindset I seem to have brought with me, the more I see my artist friends struggling with different shades of it as well. The wretched shadow of lacking self-respect hangs over all of us to some extent, keeping us poor or unproductive or in crap jobs. And it's nice staying in the shade - nicer than being in the sunlight, if you're not used to the sun.

I'm getting used to it; I was just startled, is all. Now I'm starting to feel a bit excited.