Color Me Mine
You are certain that you are a creative person. You know this because your mother once told you “You’re such a creative little person!” Then she danced off, took her “medicine” and began singing show tunes. Yes, you are a creative person. Otherwise, there would be no reason why you went to college, but have no marketable skills. There would be no reason why you didn’t go to law school back when your dad was willing to pay for it. Yet, you have no discernable talent for anything. You cannot play music (owning an acoustic guitar is no sign of anything, save poor consumer skills), you cannot draw, you cannot act (it’s not just that your “look” is too “real”), you cannot dance (we know, you have bone spurs – horrible, horrible bone spurs) and you cannot write (although your many manuscripts for children’s books might suggest otherwise). Still, you need to express yourself. If you don’t, how will the world know you once had a really bad break-up, or that you suffer from mild depression?
Do not despair. First of all, you can call yourself whatever you want, and most people will believe you. This has always been true. In the medieval period, you could call yourself a professional musician as long as you owned a lute and could play “Green-Sleeves.” If you wrote twenty-three treatises and nailed them to your door, not only were you some kind of writer, you were revolutionary (if you do this today, your landlord gets all pissy, and threatens to eat your deposit). So, call yourself an actor, writer or musician, if that’s what keeps you from killing yourself. Honestly, we were just making polite conversation that one time at the free clinic (it’s cleared up nicely – thank you for asking).
However, there are certainly creative endeavors in which you can distinguish yourself, if not make a handsome living, without any actual talent at all. Here are just a few:
• Photography: The Liberal Media might have you convinced that a photographer needs a sense of composition, color, balance and/or contrast. Nonsense. Just shoot a thousand exposures, and you’ll manage to get something which is suitable for framing in home or office. It used to be photography required a certain amount of technical knowledge, but digital photography has eliminated that need as well (unless you really want to sound like a photographer with all the “ISO this” and “F-stop that”). One Photoshop class at the community college and you’re Ansel Fucking Adams. So bang! You’re a photographer with nothing more than a computer, $800 camera, and your unabashed say-so!
• Painting: Most people don’t know good painting. If they did, Thomas Kinkade would be even more popular. He truly is “The master of light.” Even the people who do understand painting are terrified of calling your paintings “derivative shit of the worst kind,” because they don’t want to be wrong again (They really fucked up that whole Van Gogh thing, and since then most art criticism has been “It was very nice I suppose”). Throw some pigment on a canvas; paint two wide-eyed children kissing; copy some old Japanese animation cels. Do whatever you want, then start bothering people for a group show at a coffee house. If you paint for forty years, and you are sociopathic about self-promotion, you’ll manage to Jedi-mind-trick your way into a career. Just don’t ever explain your work, otherwise people will realize you weren’t being ironic when you made that sparkle-covered painting of Michael Jackson fighting a dragon.
• Performance Art: Do you like theater, but hate characters, stories, and dialogue? Do you love Pink Floyd concerts, but wish they’d stop playing all that distracting music? Do you love improv or stand-up comedy, but could do without the laughing? Do you like to go to places and see people do things? Then you’ll love performance art! No one really knows what it is, except that people come and watch you (They’re watching you! You’re getting attention! You’ll never know suffering again!) do something for a little while (causing something to go into, or out of, an orifice is a good start), then they have an emotional reaction (if people feel something it must be good art – right?). It has no rules, so you cannot fail. People who don’t like it, well, they just “don’t get it, man.” The only skill required is the ability to write a winning grant proposal. So, rent a theater, buy a case of Charles Shaw wine, and start burning friendships. Now you’re an artist, and all of your character defects become justified and acceptable.
Stay Strong America, and Await Further Instructions.
PS – Come see Robert Yasumura’s first solo show, “Images of Aspiration” at the Marquis Vanity Gallery in Silverlake, CA.
