Artists, Stop Seeking APPROVAL and Focus on Your Craft!

If you don't know Kit King , you should definitely check her out . I mean , her work is absolutely insane . I cannot wait to see photos of this exhibition . This is a massive one for Nathan . It's super exciting .

He is in the mix big time and if you have prepped for solo exhibitions , group exhibitions , where you've had multiple works , you know that there is a lot of things to get done in that process before you ship work out .

And for Nathan , of course , his work is quite heavy each piece , so he's got to get that stuff crated up and shipped over the pond to Germany , and so that's in January and you'll hear a lot more about that coming up from us and probably in the next episode we'll discuss that a little bit too .

And his preparations and deadlines and just the grind and the pressure of getting work ready with a deadline for a show . So I thought I'd jump on this week , since we don't really have the ability for Nathan and I to do one of our normal episodes .

So I'm going to jump on and I'm just going to read a few things to you that inspire me from my past and things that really do mean a lot to me from two specific books . I'm going to be reading from the Gift , a book by Lewis Hyde . It's titled the Gift Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World Absolutely fabulous book .

I will definitely put both of these books in the show notes as well , and I'm going to read a few things out of the Gift .

I'm going to read something from Theodore Retka and I'm going to read something from Ellen Ginsberg so both poets , both who have won multiple awards for their poetry and their writing over the years , and so I'm excited to read just two little inspirational bits out of that book .

And then I'll be reading from Rainier Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet another one of my favorite books , and I'm excited to read a little bit about that as well . And then I'm going to jump into something that I also came across today that really inspired me and discuss that a little bit too .

So , all right , let's get rolling as I jump into the gift by Lewis Hyde , these two sections here . This is from a Theodore Retka lecture that says I was in that particular hell of the poet , a longish dry period . It was 1952 . I was 44 years old and I thought I was done . I was living alone in a biggish house in Edmonds , washington .

I had been reading and rereading not Yeats but Raleigh and Sir John Davies . I'd been teaching the five-beat line for weeks . I knew quite a bit about it , but write it myself , no . So I felt myself a fraud .

Suddenly in the early evening , the poem , the dance started and finished itself in a very short time , say 30 minutes , maybe in the greater part of an hour . It was all done . I felt I knew I had hit it . I walked around and I wept and I knelt down I always do after I've written what I know is a good piece .

But at the same time I had , as God is my witness , the actual sense of a presence , as if Yeats himself were in that room . The experience was in a way terrifying , for it lasted at least a half an hour . That house , I repeat , was charged with a psychic presence . The very walls seemed to shimmer . I wept for joy .

He , they , the dead poets , they were all with me . Wow , I know we've talked about this at times , the fact that I love to invite my dead peers , my heroes , my idols , into the studio with me on a regular basis .

And I do feel as if there are times when I just really hit a piece , like I really nail it , just like Retka's saying there , and I feel like they're all surrounding me and cheering and clapping and talking about the piece with me . So when I read that moment years ago , it just blew me away .

And then he goes on to say such moments of unwilled reception are not all there is to the creation of the work of art . Of course , notice Rettke , I'd been teaching the five beat line for weeks . All artists work to acquire and perfect the tools of their craft and all art involves evaluation , clarification and revision . But these are secondary asks .

They cannot begin , and sometimes they must not begin , until the materia , the body of the work , is on the page or on the canvas . The Kula prohibition on speaking of the value of the gift has its equivalent in the creative spirit . Premature evaluation cuts off the flow . The imagination does not barter its engendering images .

In the beginning , we have no choice but to accept what has come to us , hoping that the cinders some forest spirit saw fit to bestow may turn to gold when we have carried them back to the hearth . Allen Ginsberg has been our consistent spokesman on that phase of work in which the artist lays evaluation aside so that the gift may come forward .

This is Ginsberg . The parts that embarrass you the most are usually the most interesting poetically , are usually the most naked of all , the rawest , the goofiest , the strangest and the most eccentric and at the same time most representative and most universal . That was something I learned from Kerouac , which was that spontaneous writing could be embarrassing .

The cure for that is to write things down which you will not publish , which you will not show people , to write secretly , so you can actually be free to say anything you want . It means abandoning being the poet , abandoning your careerism , abandoning even the idea of writing any poetry .

Really abandoning Giving up is hopeless Abandoning the possibility of really expressing yourself to the nations of the world , abandoning the idea of being a prophet with honor and dignity and abandoning the glory of poetry and just settling down in the muck of your own mind .

You really have to make a resolution just to write for yourself , in the sense of not writing to impress yourself , but writing what yourself is saying Wow , that's pretty incredible . Sometimes we just need to create for ourselves and only ourselves , even if it's awful , even if it's shitty , even if it embarrasses the hell out of you , who cares ?

Nobody's going to see it , but you . That's how to be completely free and what might come out of that . That's how to be completely free and what might come out of that .

We don't know what's going to come out of that , because we don't do that very often , but I love those little clues from Kerouac that he taught to Ginsburg , that Ginsburg just then took to his poetry , that collaborative element , that network , that friend , that confidant that you can talk back and forth with and take those things back to your studio .

It's just absolutely incredible , man . I love that . It's just beautiful .

I want to now go to one of my favorite passages in Letters to a Young Poet by Rainier Maria Rilke , who's one of my favorite poets , and honestly I wasn't too sure what I was going to talk about today , but I was sitting on my couch this morning at 5 am with my little puppy , cash , who was sleeping on my lap , and I was reading Wendell Berry poetry this

morning one of the best nature poets that has ever existed , very , very deep , spiritual poet , who writes incredibly about nature and things around him and I was like , oh man , I got to share some from Rilke because he's also one of my favorite poets .

And so this book is actually letters that Rilke is writing to a young poet who went to the same academy as him and I think this poet was 19 years old at the time and discovered some of Rilke's works and knew that Rilke went to the same military academy that he did , and so , after reading some of Rilke's work and really becoming a fan boy of his poetry ,

he decided to write a number of letters to Rilke asking him for advice , and I know we've talked about this book multiple times . For Nathan and I it's very influential . And so this is a letter in 1903 , okay , in Paris that Rilke writes back after the poet asked some questions about getting noticed and the audience recognizing him . The audience

recognizing him . Here we go . You ask whether your verses are any good . You ask me you have asked others before this you send them to magazines , you compare them with other poems and you are upset when certain editors reject your work . Now , since you have said you want my advice , I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing .

You are looking outside , and that is what you should most avoid . Right now , no one can advise or help you no one . There is only one thing you should do Go into yourself . Find out the reason that commands you to write . See whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart .

Confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write this . Most of all , ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night must I write ? Dig into yourself for a deep answer . And if this answer rings out in a scent , yourself for a deep answer .

And if this answer rings out in assent , if you meet this solemn question with a strong , simple I must then build your life in accordance with that necessity . Your whole life , even into its humblest and most indifferent hour , must become a sign and a witness to this impulse . Then come close to nature .

Then , as if no one has ever tried before , try to say what you see and feel and love and lose . Don't write love poems . Avoid those forms that are too facile and ordinary . They are the hardest to work with . Rescue yourself from general themes and write about what your everyday life offers .

You Describe your sorrows and your desires , the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty . Describe all these with heartfelt , silent , humble sincerity . And when you express yourself , use the things around you , the images from your dreams and the objects that you remember . And if your everyday life seems poor , don't blame it .

Blame yourself . Admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches , because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor , indifferent place .

And even if you found yourself in some prison whose walls let in none of the world's sounds , wouldn't you still have your childhood , that jewel beyond all price , that treasure house of memories ? Turn your attention to that . Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past .

Your personality will grow stronger , your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight , where the noise of other people passes by far in the distance . And if out of this turning within , out of this immersion in your own world , poems come , then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not .

A work of art is good if it is arisen out of necessity . That is the only way one can judge it . So , dear sir , I can't give you any advice , but to do this Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows . At its source , you will find the answer to the question of whether you must create .

Accept that answer just as it was given to you , without trying to interpret it . Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist .

Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it its burden and its greatness , without ever asking what reward might come from the outside , for the Creator must be a world for themselves and must find everything in themself and nature , to whom your whole life is devoted .

But after the descent into yourself and into solitude , perhaps you will have to renounce becoming a poet . If , as I have said , one feels one could live without writing , then you shouldn't write at all . Nevertheless , even then , this self-searching that I ask of you will not have been for nothing .

Your life will still find its own paths from there , and that may be good , rich and wide . That's what I wish for you more than I can say . No-transcript , wow , wow . That is one of the most powerful pieces of literature writing advice I've ever read in my life and he's basically saying can you live without making art ? Can you live without creating ?

If you can't , then chase it , run after it , go for it with all your being .

And if you can't find anything to create from , if you get stumped , if you hit a dry spell , go back into your memories , your childhood memories , and pull from there and I love how he says and get close to nature , get outside , go for a walk around the lake , go to the beach , the mountains , walk around the city , get out into nature , sit by a tree ,

bring your journal , gosh , I mean , I can't tell you the impact that that has on the soul . And everything he's talking about is the soul , that deepness , that depth of things that come when we're completely inhabited with ourselves and everything around us and paying attention . I love that . It's just . Oh man , every time I read it , it's just .

It hits me harder and harder and harder . And what is the really big thing to take from that ? Quit asking , quit caring about what other people think about your work . Sure , we want the audience to give its approval and tell us what they think of our work , but don't let that be your focus . Don't worry about the likes on Instagram .

Don't worry about how many people are commenting on your pieces when you show them . Don't worry about that . Just make freaking art . Anyways , get that book . I highly recommend it . I'll have it in the show notes again as well . You're going to hear us talk about it probably quite a bit over the next hour long .

We do this podcast , so this morning I came across this incredible moment from the artist Edward Povey I think that's how you pronounce it P-O-V-E-Y . Edward Povey , probably Povey and it blew me away , so I'm going to play it for you . You're going to hear him say it and then I'll discuss it for a minute after that .

So forget about them , because the only way to them is to make paintings that come completely from yourself and your own world , your own experience of being a human being , and that is something that most human beings on the planet will be able to relate to . So forget about them .

Why are we so concerned with all of the people around us ? And I just had to kind of think about that myself , like forget about the masses , forget about the follow , forget about those things . Make paintings that come completely from myself , that come completely from my world .

When you are devoid of all of the focus on the outward and you start to completely focus on the inward and you create from there , most human beings will relate to that and they will show up . They will start to show up . So something to really really think about . That's my closing thoughts for you Go inward , forget about the outward .

People will be drawn to that , because that's where truth comes from , that's where real comes from . I hope you have an incredible holiday for those of you in the States . I hope that you have an incredible rest of the week and weekend to everybody else around the world . Thank you so much for listening to us .

We'll be back with regular scheduled programming in two weeks where Nathan and I'll be back together talking about some really fun stuff that we have prepped for you . So check us out on all places you can podcast and make sure to watch us on YouTube .

You can watch all of our video broadcasts from each episode , where I put some fun B-roll and things in often and we will see you soon , say hi . We'd love to say hi and chat with you . We'll see you soon . Have a great week . Bye .