On being a full-time artist

On being a full-time artist

Posted on December 28th, 2010 by Chris Matarazzo

My day gig is teaching, so I am off this week. All I really had to do yesterday was shovel snow. That is it. This was done by about eleven o’clock in the morning. Did I come in and compose a sonata? Did I practice an extra hour on my guitar? Did I work on the final two mixes on my current musical project? Did I get around to writing this article before 8:55 PM last night? Nope.

This sort of artistic truancy is rare for me, by the way, but I think my artistic readers can relate to falling into it, at least on occasion. It is amazing to me that, after a grueling schedule that causes me to squeeze in writing and composing when I can, that open spans of time like today don’t always yield marathon creation-fests. In fact, I seem to be more artistically productive when I am overwhelmed with responsibilities. Teacher or not, I produce more work in the fall than I ever do in summer.

Why? Fear. Plain and simple. When I am busy, the fear that the world is going to steal my real passion drives me to fight — to tell everyday responsibility that, although I will not shirk it, it can’t hold me down. The sometime bleakness of a day full of things I must do causes me to look for the bright windows of creative time and I throw them open whenever I can, to let in the light and air.

And the truth is, many of the things I do outside of my artistic work, I believe in deeply. Being a dad and a husband, for instance. Also, as a teacher, I work hard and take great pride in my work. I like my job. But it does interfere with my creativity at times (though, at times, it inspires it, as well). See, it isn’t always the bad stuff that interferes. In fact, sometimes, good stuff will seduce you away from creativity. That can be more damaging to the old portfolio, in the end.

At a wedding, once, I was talking to a friend who had kids some years before me. He is a talented musician and he and I were in a band together that was doing pretty well before everyone but yours truly decided that making real, reliable money was more important. Anyway, he said, “Wait until you have kids. You’ll stop wanting to write. How could you ever create something as cool as your kids? What’s the point?”

I decided, that night, that this would never happen to me — that having kids would not, as wonderful as it would be, shut any doors on my work. In fact, with the writing of a lullaby for my first son — still a piece I consider one of my best — I began a personal composition renaissance that has lasted until today.

Fear of losing time and the will to compose helped me to forge on.

I guess the message to my fellow artists who do other work to make ends meet — or who have other passions — winds up being pretty simple: Just, as they say, do it. Don’t look longingly forward to having time to write, paint, sculpt, compose, etc. Pretend that time will never come. Be an active artist at all times. Wedge your work in-between the cracks in the wall of your daily schedule.

Be sure not to define yourself as an artist (or as not an artist) based on how long you work at a stretch. Serious artists can work fifteen minutes per day. In fact, no serious artist is a part-time artist. Any good artist works all day long, anyway, drafting in the mind. (When people ask me where I get my ideas, I ask them , in return, “Where don’t I get my ideas?”)

In the end, it is okay to take a couple of days off when vacation comes, like I did today. Read books. Watch crappy TV. Take walks. Play with the kids. Drink a little. Feel free to “chill” when it is time to recharge. That’s how you gather seasoning for the next stew you’re going to concoct.

Chris Matarazzo’s ARTISTIC UNKNOWNS appears every Tuesday

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Chris Matarazzo

Chris Matarazzo is a writer, composer, musician and teacher of literature and writing on the college and high school levels. His music can be heard on his recent release, Hats and Rabbits, which is currently available. Chris is also the composer of the score to the off-beat independent film Surrender Dorothy and he performs in the Philadelphia area with the King Richard Band. He's also a relatively prolific novelist, even if no one seems to care yet. His blog, also called Hats and Rabbits, is nice, too, if you get a chance...