Cleaning my office today, I found a journal of mine from 2011 when I went to Paris for a conference. Flipping randomly through it, my thumb and attention stopped on the following. It's in my handwriting, but I have no recollection whatsoever of having written it. The advice, however, is useful for creatives types, indeed, for all us us, I submit.
Life Lessons from Édouard Manet
- We go through many different periods in our careers.
- Our friends can fail to support us, can hold us back as much as be our champions.
- We can be too influenced by others.
- The critics may hate our work, but no one remembers their names.
- Politics count.
- We may need to leave home to start again.
- It helps to be surrounded by talented people.
- Working quicker makes for better work.
- We do things to pay the bills, but even these should have a soul, should follow a higher calling.
- We may not figure out what we are really supposed to be doing until we are nearly dead.
- Copying the masters is a noble way to start a career.
- Reworking the masters in our own work is no defense against critics.
- It's OK to make art for our friends.
- It's OK to make art about our friends.
- Confront the audience’s conventions and expectations.
- If conventional people reject our work, we should publish it ourselves.
- Drawing attention to our technique is not a bad idea.
- Work outdoors when we can.
- Do and do not depict life as it is.
- Focus on the fragment; let the viewer extend the frame.
- Compress the foreground; ignore deep space.
- Going against the group is going to cost us.
- There are worse things than being censored.
- If you are baffling, incoherent, and sketchy, you might be on to something.