This book was a wonderful treatise on what it means to be and live as an artist. It is comprised of short chapters, each more a musing than anything certain. As a self-proclaimed artist, many of the ideas proposed were things I had considered before, but they were still refreshing to hear from a living artistic legend like Rick Rubin (co-founder of Def Jam records and winner of eight Grammy awards). As he writes, “artists allow us to see what we are unable to see, but somehow already know.” This is how I felt reading his book!
Many of my friends who work traditional jobs, ones with a start time and an end time, sometimes ask me when my weekend is. The thing is, artists don’t really take ‘time off.’ Do we go on vacation? Sure. But we never turn ourselves off from drinking in what life has to offer, for who knows when that next seed of an idea will present itself, one that we must surely plant and nurture. It is the artist’s job to always remain open and ready to receive these seeds.
How do we know when a work is finished? Of course, there is no ‘correct’ answer, it is more of a feeling. We work until it is done; sometimes a project requires long grueling hours and sometimes creating is a short and pleasant endeavor. Regardless what medium of art we are crafting in, “the amount of time we put in and the results we get are rarely in balance. A large movement may materialize all at once; other times a tiny detail may take days. And there’s no predicting how much of a role either will play in the final outcome.” As someone who has written music for over a decade, I can attest that this is true.
One of the hardest aspects of being an artist is feeling successful. What happens when we publish a book, but fail to get anybody to read it? Or film a movie that nobody watches, or produce a song that nobody hears? Luckily, Rubin has an answer for this quandary of the soul as well, reminding us that “success has nothing to do with variables outside yourself.” Once we have finished with our current work, and are ready to release it to the world, we are successful. It is something that “occurs in the privacy of the soul.”
From finding ideas, crafting them, editing them, believing in them, releasing them, getting feedback, all the way to starting again, Rubin’s book touches on every aspect of living the creative life. It is full of wisdom that I will surely revisit in times of need.
The most important question it asks is: Why make art?
The answer: To connect.
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