Doing art for a living sounds exhausting unless you’re already super rich. I can’t imagine trying to express things sincerely with the survival agenda hanging over one’s head.
Jeff Jordan did the cover work for Mars Volta’s 3rd album. It started with a collage, and then he made a painting inspired by it. He said of it ‘it creates an abundance of questions and answers none.’ And it really does. It evokes curiosity.
How does one do that?
I think the answer is to live a different life. What oxygen do I have for my own curiosity? I’m busy owning a house, and cooking a meal, and cleaning a thing, and writing a Salesforce.
How nice it must’ve been to belong to the land. To not be so burdened with self-determination. To be able to trust an ecosystem that wanted you, needed you to be a part of it.
I have a pretty good series of systems nowadays. Some of the self-help stuff really pays off. Regular exercise, ability to earn money, eat well, have a balanced life. But fuck me its a fight to keep it running. Constant vigilance. Can’t trust the animal brain to work any of that shit. Its too dumb, it’ll just eat and drink and get addicted to screens. Its so unfair cause the inside of my brain is tired and gets stressed.
I want to express more while I think less.