Amateur or Professional?

Hello Everyone
I am teaching my first class of the summer tonight and I thought that I would re-post this bit that I wrote at the beginning of last semester as I think it is still relevant. Enjoy!

As some of you may know I teach a couple of illustration and design classes at ACC. Today I had my favorite class, illustration, and only a few of the students showed up. Seems things have become hard and it is easier to stay home than come to class and face the work. I read a book once called "the war of art", where the author (can't remember his name) said that the difference between a professional and an amateur is that the professional shows up no matter what. Professionals are at their work even if they feel crappy, uninspired and uncreative. The amateur thinks about working but never actually does anything. When making art it is important to designate a time to work every day and stick to it. Even if it's just standing in front of your easel (or computer) and making random marks. Something will happen. If you think the thoughts of how hard the work is or if it wouldn't be nicer to go watch TV, or even worse you go watch TV, then you have robbed yourself of the chance for the universe to help with your work. Beware of distractions! TV, video games, drinking, the list goes on and it will divert you from the creative path. So back to my class. The ones that are here today are working hard. The ones that are not here are not working hard on their projects. Period. Amateur or professional?

ps I added a cool photo of an Emigre cover by uber illustrator Henrik Drescher because we all need something fab to look at!

Frozen Art

Hi Everyone,
I have always been in awe of the ice hotel in Sweden. I love the idea of making something beautiful that lasts for only a short time, then melts back into the earth. Disposable art. Impermanent art. Precious art. I think we as humans try to preserve almost everything, old paintings, buildings, our bodies and emotions, are some examples. This may be a subconscious need to combat change. Or perhaps a need to resist the fear of change. I had some steel chairs made from some of my designs and they, like a lot of my art, take up space in my house. So I put one out in the yard and it started to rust. No surprise here but what did surprise me was peoples reaction. "How can you let that beautiful chair rust?", perplexed people would ask. I found that it was peoples reaction that had become the art. Their fear of things falling apart that reminds them of humans rush to unavoidable death. We become so attached to "stuff" that we forget that objects are not that important really. We spend huge amounts of time and energy keeping artifacts from rotting away to dust instead of creating new work. I love to watch cooking shows. Partly this is because it is fascinating to see a chief create a beautiful dish with the purpose of having it destroyed (eaten). Performance art? So my advice is to make something you love, art, food, whatever. Then give it away, eat it, let it rot or destroy it. The feeling of liberation is amazing. Anyway, the ice hotel, at least from the photos I have seen, is a wonderful place that I have on my list to visit someday, along with Iceland, the Nile river and Japan.
Ice hotel: http://www.icehotel.com/ and my chairs that become rusty with time: curvy chair
cheers
(It's hot here - is it fall yet?)