I’ve been lucky to work with a few remarkably talented, truely creative people. Most of them have two problems:
- Promoting their art.
- Not understanding how really good they are.
The reason for #2 is this. Essentially, creative people surround themselves with really wonderful examples of their art. The musician that listens to The Beatles, Beethoven, and Biggie Smalls all day. Or the cartoonist that picks up his dog-eared copy of Maus for the 400th time. And the painter that moons away at each gallery of the Met, wishing she could capture the light just like El Greco or Turner.
Part of it is that you only get see how very good the masters are. You never get to see Van Gogh struggle with, and then give up on shadows. (Well, you can, if you visit the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam).
Instead, you’ve got your twenty page short story, and you compare it to Hemingway, when what you should be comparing it to is Dan Brown. Seriously, that’s a funny article. Read it.
Artists surround themselves with beauty, because they have a killer sense of taste. But that taste can be bitter and self-defeating.
Sometime, they need to spend some time with crap.

