Friday 11th June 2004
Between learning Czech and trying to get a nine to five, I'm struggling to put together articles for this column that I'm happy with. The last, "World Music", feels contrived and almost worthless, and I can see a political manifesto creeping in, reminding me of the other topics I could write on. But I'll never be able to escape the memory of the 'creative process', which, for that particular article, isn't a great recollection.
But it's a trait many artists of whatever type share. Franz Kafka told his agent to destroy all his works, but (happily) the agent disobeyed. I'm guessing there are thousands of creative peices that never saw the light of day because of the artist's self-deprecation or perfectionism — songs that were never played or recorded, poems that were thrown in the bin, manuscripts burnt, photos never developed, paintings painted over. Perhaps the creator is the worst person to judge the worth of their art, but then again, it is they who craft it by judging their own additions and ideas.
Or maybe that's completely wrong — maybe artists just sometimes need to learn to appreciate their own work, and maybe some find that easy. But some find it hard even considering themselves artists. Every artist must have a crisis of confidence at some point; what does it take to overcome? Is it just to keep creating and open your work to criticism, praise and comment? Does your art need to have impact, make money, attract an audience? On a little corner of the web without a comment feature or any way of keeping track of hits, I don't know if I'm getting any of the above. I don't even get spam at my email address, let alone feedback!
But what am I complaining about? I haven't promoted this column much, google doesn't even index it. I still have a little place where I can publish my own articles. How ace is that? Anyway, I've gotta be off to an interview...