Alt: A photo with the text “Would you press this button?” And two images representing options: option 1 is “50% chance of becoming a billionaire” with an image of a shovel full of money, and the other “50% chance of becoming this” being an image of Astolfo, a character from Type-Moon’s “Fate” anime/manga/VN series noted for crossdressing as a cute girl, and is commonly identified as a LGBT icon.
It’s about how culture isn’t property. It belongs to all of us, like language. It cannot be owned. When a movie shifts an entire industry, and the director still thinks he’s free to dictate what’s in it, twenty years later, artists need reminding: you shared this. You gave it to us, or sold it to us. It cannot possibly be yours alone. We outnumber you. As time goes on, some of us have spent more time thinking about it than you ever did.
When a work has influenced people, nobody gets to take that away - least of all the artist. They don’t even get to tell people how to feel about it at-the-time. Trying to erase a work entirely is intolerable censorship. Nothing that any human being put effort into deserves to be lost forever. Not even the stuff that belongs behind a little wall at some somber museum. You are allowed to walk away from it, to disavow it, to never again be associated with it. If you feel that you are no longer the person who made it, vaya con dios. But then who the fuck do you think you are, telling me I can’t continue to love it?
Yup, I agree with all of that. Also though from the perspective of the artist, I prefer to think of the act of creation as not coming fully from the artist, but moving through them.
Like people used to not say someone is a genius, but that they have a genius. It was basically the same thing as a genie - a helper.
Also the book Steal Like an Artist has a lot about how you should stop trying to be totally original and just accept that your work is and will always be a mish-mash of different influences. It even advises you to simply try to emulate your heroes, and in failing to do so accurately, you’ll find your own unique voice.
Another way to think of creativity is that it’s like a kind of temporary possession that you have to exorcise by creating the thing, I call this the “taking a shit” model of creativity.
This isn’t to demean artists or their work, I find it takes the pressure off of me presonally.
As expressed through Mike Mignola, almost.
This is great too, thanks!