The Best Question An Artist Can Ask
Artists are really good at making mistakes and failing. The are supremely talented at it actually. I see this as a good thing. In terms of understanding risk and learning from those chances situations, artists and creatives have a leg up on knowing what it’s like to fall on your face because they do it… often.
This can become discouraging because, well, who wants to continually do that, to put themselves in circumstances that are surrounded by maybes and not sures. However there is a way to avoid the potential pitfalls of public faceplants. That comes down to one question: What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made and how can I avoid it?
I’m a huge advocate of informational interviews. Being able to have a brief ten to fifteen minute conversation with someone who has been in my field for a longer period of time can be one of the most valuable assets to the business of my arts practice. Sometimes I seek these quick conversations out, other times they happen by chance encounters or at the various conferences I attend.
I’m not surprised by people’s graciousness in disseminating their If-I-could-do-it-over -agains. Most of us would rather watch our contemporaries and successors do well because providing clarity assists us all in furthering our careers towards sustainability. Usually this question about mistakes can lead to not just one example but several. Mistakes that were made years ago and ones that were made in the recent past.
Artists understand that the landscape is continually changing and therefore the systems that once worked to their advantage (such as crowdfunding) can be quickly co-opted by popularity and lose their punch. Fortunately there are those who understand the whole gestalt of the field’s resources, as well as their own personal trademarks and branding.
Artists understand that they can do phenomenally well and then can dip into unfavorable circumstances that are beyond their control. Yet staying true to their own integrity grants them the permission to understand the risks they choose and the advantages and disadvantages of those choices. Artists are under no illusion that getting their art to the forefront of people’s minds is an easy task.
This is where the embarrassment of mistakes made can transform into a humorous edge, which can then be leveraged as an asset for others to learn from. The marketplace of the arts is unwieldy, full of holes, who-you-knows, imperfections and annoying mysteries. Yet by reaching out to those you respect both as peers and influencers, there is a way to understand the various temperaments that impact the various ways that one can exist in the world of the arts.
One good way to start is to ask yourself the question What’s the biggest mistake I’ve made in my arts practice and how would I’ve done it differently if given the chance? How would you answer this question if someone who is coming up in the same field asked you it? How would you empathically and compassionately respond? As you start to reach out to others with this inquiry you’ll see that there’s no way around being human.
I worked a while back as a Production Assistant on a solo show about Bucky Fuller. I was backstage and listened to this monologue for 8 shows a week for about 6 months. The line that stayed with me the most (and I’m paraphrasing) was about how people should not be measured on the amount of expertise they have, but rather on the amount of mistakes they make. Fuller saw mistakes as a gateway to understanding rather than something to be ashamed of.
Fuller was tapped into his creativity in a generous, vastly expansive way, which he made available to others in countless capacities. As artists we should be not only willing but proactive in doing the same. Our mistakes are golden tickets that lead us to a world full of sweetness and magic.
I help performing artists get their business skills together without the bullshit. I know this from trial and error as a performer myself. Go stalk me at sethums.com
