What is that in art? Fame? Fortune? Praise? A museum show? A NYT or New Yorker review? Inner fulfillment for a project well done? Achieving peace within yourself? A big sale? Admiration from a loved one? The ability to tell yourself you are finished with a project and the freedom to move on to the next one?

Different definitions for different people and different projects, I am sure.

As a young man, once I figured out that I was going to make art for the rest of my life, the job seemed relatively clear: make art. That's exactly what I did. Of course, I learned there were issues in there and things for me to figure out, like: what art?  Who was I artistically? What were my priorities? Would I be single minded? Would my approach be diverse? Early on, you don't know if you are prolific or not, a natural spring of ideas flowing forth or working much slower with ideas and execution less frequent. Would I work hard? I had no idea. I didn't know what my work ethic was. This was the fist time I was passionate about what I was doing at the young age of 22 or so.

At any rate, I know my goals were different then, perhaps based more on the idea that I'd be discovered, achieve some kind of fame that involved fast cars, my own high-end modern house with a view to die for, first class travel to exotic locations, surrounded by adoring and beautiful women; and that I would make art that was always amazing.

Well, my friends, success looks a lot different to me now. Maybe to you too. Hopefully, it is a vision with a little more substance. I believe, in many ways, I've been successful beyond my wildest dreams. I took the idea of making art seriously throughout my career. At my age I care a great deal about peace of mind, satisfaction in living a life of honorable intent and result, giving back and not always taking, having a reputation for honesty and integrity and so on. My family. And yes, even leaving behind a body of work that has significance and relevance.

What would be your definition of success? If we confine this to making photographs it would naturally fit into categories like: exhibition, publishing, critical acclaim from reviewers, your work being purchased by collectors, a following of people that admire what you've done and so on. If you've read the preceding post called Calculation you know that there can be false signals in there, traps and pitfalls to fall into.

I would like to suggest a different lens for "success". One in which the work you make is a way to share your innate quality, your unique perception with a world that gets it, that understands the contribution you make,  your ability to see it and to comment on it in ways that deepen our common human experience. 

Success is certainly tied to respect. It isn't that usual that artists get great respect or are revered for the contribution they make, especially here in America in the middle of the current decade. I've only felt this a few times and one was while I was a resident at the Baer Art Center in New Zealand in 2013. We were chosen by the quality of our art and then, when there, given the freedom to create while mundane things like having to eat, see different things and exercise were provided for us, with quality and sincere friendship. This was remarkable as we felt hugely supported in our efforts. It was, to put it briefly, a sublime and most wonderful experience. I would call that a success. Plus, I made good work.

To close this out I would like to propose that success might nestle up to fulfillment, a feeling of peace and pride in who you are, what you represent and whether you can hold your head high, proud of achievements but humbled by your smallness in a very big world. And let's face it, we don't feel good if we're only about ourselves, thinking just of what we can get, buy or consume. The road to happiness? Give back somehow, give stuff away and work to make others' lives a little better.

I don't know about you but I always am most passionate about what I am working on right now. Call it an obsession. It's what I think about, what I dream about, what I am driven to shoot more, edit more and print. Projects for me can take months or years of work, reshoots, trying out different presentations, different size prints and  different paper choices and so on. 

On the other hand, some projects come from only an hour or two of shooting, an afternoon of walking around photographing and then working for weeks later to coalesce the work into a whole; editing, sequencing and so on.

Because I am usually very into what I'm working on  right now I find it hard to go back through earlier material, to search for things I shot last month or even years ago that have never seen the light of day. 

As it turns out this isn't so unusual. Many photographers are more into the new and believe what's hot off the press is the best work ever. Typical for me is when I've been off somewhere on a trip to photograph. On coming back I start work on one or two bodies of photographs I know I have to see, to edit, and to print. The winter I lived in Santa Rosa, CA, it was two: the Salt Point Park 

series and the Skate Park series. 

Those two remain as the two primary bodies of work I made while there and hold a place in my heart as well as I learned new ways of seeing through those projects.  But as I shoot every day on a trip like that there is other work that deserves attention too. I did that with two series: Central Valley Aerials, a bizarre landscape of fields of lilacs and crops in a sort of stasis in February during a state wide drought and

Before and After Aerials, photographs I made early the day we went up and in the afternoon after we landed, also in the Central Valley.

I am glad I did as the work has stood up well over time. Of course, doing this can get complicated as, by the time I was working on those two series back at home, I was into something new and consumed by it. This can be a juggling game of balancing the present work with work being brought to the front done from the past. On the other hand, one of the benefits of letting things sit for a while is that often we have a far better perspective on work that's shot but not looked at yet or edited. When I was teaching full time I had a colleague who always was three years behind the work he'd shot, intentionally. 

One final point, and it is a big one but more germane to those that shoot digitally rather than with film. In earlier digital days the past work could be inferior in  technical quality. I was replacing cameras more frequently then as every year or so there were large steps forward. Small chip to full size chip, higher ISO's with less noise, better color engines, faster file handling, and yes, better lenses too. This meant that often I would go back into past things shot only to find they weren't up to my current standards of file quality or size, meaning there were big limitations on how big I could make a print or the quality of an image. Sharpening in particular was problematic when trying to make bigger images. Now, not so much. I would say that particularly things in terms of file size have stabilized enough that I can go back into 2012 or so and assume the files are practically as good as the files I am making now. This is a very good thing.

So, go back. Take the time to plunge into an earlier library or catalogue to see what you passed over then but should pay attention to now. I don't buy the rational that says older work isn't as good, or that the newest work is always the best. Your work is your work. You should think about giving it it's due. We often feel we aren't respected as artists that use photography. But this is about giving yourself the level of legitimacy you deserve for your work and  committing to it. You made the pictures and presumably put some effort and thought into them. Follow through. Make the edits, process the files, make the prints. Simple enough.

Over twenty-five years of shooting 8 x 10 I couldn't help but think of the warmer months as times for photographing and the winter as a time to process film and make prints. How many times have you been free to photograph when the weather is really bad and you can't go out? Or you'd like to be back on the Isle of Man or in South America again but you can't? Winter when stuck at home is a good time to go back to the pictures you made earlier and comb through them to see if there's anything else in there you missed. I bet there is.

As always I am reachable can reach me via email: here.

For the purposes of this essay this is the process of making art by calculating its effect.   Political art would fit this definition. Making art for the purpose of selling it would also.

Most assume that art is made out of passion, out of a need to be expressive, or an emotional reaction to things. For many it is emotion made visual. But for some art is intellectual and thought through, made for intended effect. 

Does your art come from a place of need? Felt rather than thought? Does something stop you in your tracks and require that you photograph it even before you've thought it through? Or do you plot and plan, follow through in your mind all the steps to make a finished photograph, from what it is of through to how it is perceived on a gallery wall?

Let's look at a couple of scenarios. We'll broaden our lens here to the larger world of making art.

Number one

Lynette is a painter. She makes her paintings in groups of work; a certain color palette here, a drawing style or technique there, smaller or larger, on canvas or paper and so on. Last year she had a show of newer canvasses at a local gallery that did very well. Not only did the show sell out but the local paper published a glowing review.  The show was held in high esteem by artists in her community that she respects. Everything about this work felt right to her. It came from a deep place inside as she was wrestling with demons from her upbringing, her parents splitting up when she was little, a road trip she took with her dad, and her brother's death, killed in an auto accident when he was sixteen.The gallery owner told Lynette at the end of the show the he'd like to see new work and that he was very pleased with the show. 

With all that behind her she starts to work on a new group of paintings, a new body of work.  She is thinking of making a series that will be different but even more successful than the last show. She can see the praise and sales now in her mind's eye. These new ones are going to be bigger with stronger colors and more gestural, less figurative, more assertive. She doesn't hesitate but plunges right into making these new paintings.

Cut to the end of the story. She powers through the making of this body of work in a kind of creative frenzy and rushes to show these new paintings to the same gallery as before. The gallery owner seems a little shell shocked by this new work but agrees to show them in a one person exhibition the next summer. She's exhausted but pleased. The show comes and there is no praise about this new work. The same reviewer for the local paper as before writes that the paintings are overblown, scattered and in disarray, made without cohesion or a common thread.  She sells nothing. Lynette is crushed. The show comes and goes and her friends are noticeably less engaged with her about her art. She is very unhappy and doubts herself, her abilities and her choice to be an artist. She stops painting for quite a while, lacks motivation and doesn't like anything she paints.

The question is: what was she thinking? Was her experience with the show that sold well a strong influence that predisposed her to calculate what she needed to do to make paintings that would be even more successful than the last show?  Was that experience so fulfilling she sought to make it happen again? Can an artist do that? Pull the trigger on work of high quality on demand?

Number two 

John is a sculptor. He lives out in the country down a long dirt driveway and has a studio in an old barn on his property. He teaches for income. He welds, fabricates and incorporates glass into his sculptures. He seldom shows but when he does it is usually because someone's sought him out, maybe a former student turned curator or gallery owner, maybe someone who's seen his work and wants to see more. He doesn't change his work much although he might take a course in a new welding process or apprentice at a local body shop to learn how to mold sheet metal.  He has a show at the museum in the city nearby and a local gallery agrees to handle sales should there be any. The show sells out and there is a bidding war for some of the pieces. The museum buys a couple of things that are at his studio for their permanent collection. There is a good deal of buzz about this new artist the museum curator "discovered". The New York Times writes a piece on him in the Sunday magazine. He's now getting calls from all over the world about his work. While he seldom picks up he can't ignore the Guggenheim Museum or Dia Beacon.  He tries to work every day, just as he always has. He has become very successful. He hires an assistant not to create more publicity but to buffer him from those that are after him. John continues to make new work, one piece at a time. He struggles to maintain an equilibrium in all the noise of curators seeking him out, the publishing of a new book about his work, his teaching responsibilities, paying bills, ordering materials, maintaining important friendships and relationships and the occasional press interview with the private part of him that is the well of where his art comes from, this inside core of his very being. He does manage to protect that part him mainly by saying no more than yes, by sticking with discipline to his schedule, by staying true to his initial ideals and by working very hard. His work grows in its depth, in its beauty and in its refinement. He understands that it is the work, the making of the art that brings meaning to his life, not the approbation or adulation from others and certainly not the sales.

In the first example, Lynette veered off track with her first show's success. Think of the rock band wildly successful from their first album's sales going back into the recording studio to make the second album and having nothing to give, little to say and a tendency for their music to sound not as good. 

My advice to photographers would be to tread lightly in the realm of making work by calculation. It is inevitable that you will find yourself thinking about what effect the work you make will have on people. But I think that is really a "fringe thing", not a core reason for making pictures. 

In the "John" example he is a centered person in that he understands he needs to make these sculptural pieces of metal and glass. The external success feels good, sure, but it doesn't change who he is or what he does. Instead he seeks to preserve a process worked out over years and to buffer himself from the newer parts that are his fame. With Lynette she made the initial work out of a true passion for her craft and vocation, but the subsequent work was not true to her as it was forced and it ultimately failed. These two examples are perhaps oversimplifications, but you get my point.

Where does your art come from?

This is part of a series of looks at states of mind or the causes and effects in the life of artists. The series started with 

Doubt

then went on to

Failure

Next up? Success.

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Stay tuned.

Failure. Lots of it. Tons of it. My whole career. Apply to something, interview for something, present something. Rejected. Story of my life.

Bring failure up with anyone who is seriously accomplished and, if they're honest, they've had failures too, probably getting more rejections than successes throughout their career. Everyone has. It's what one does with the failure that matters.

To some extant I could dodge the bullet by saying I am brilliant but misunderstood. But honestly, how difficult is it really to understand my work? I could mope around after being rejected and shut down, become depressed, cynical, feeling low and not picked by those that count. Or I can move on or interpret the failure as a challenge to make new, to continue, to make better or even to prove them wrong. I had a friend I used to teach with who had gone to RISD when I was there. He came to RISD from studying with Minor White at MIT.  Minor told him very simply to give up photography, that he saw no future for my friend in the discipline. To say that the meeting with White incentivized my friend would be an understatement. It charged him to prove his teacher wrong.

Can you imagine having the ego to tell a student to stop studying something? That one always floored me, that White would do that to someone.

Think about your past failures and rejections. Haven't some of them been really  good news in disguise?

I offer this an example of a failure turning into a success. In 1980 Northeastern University announced a new artist in residency program for photographers: it was for one semester, with a a good stipend, a place to work and with no other responsibilities. This was made for me, or so I thought. I applied and was selected to interview on their short list. I had a great interview but was rejected the next week with no explanation, no reason why I had failed. I was devastated. Later it turned out they were sifting though a local applicant pool to see if they could find someone to head their new photography program they were starting up the next year. Someone else got the residency but I was asked the next year by the professor that interviewed me to apply for a full time faculty position to start and head the Photography Program. That one I got. This became my full time employment for the next thirty years. Case in point: failures can be very good.

Don't assume I have no sympathy for others' failures. I do. It's just that what looks like total rejection in the short term can turn out to be for the best, allowing something really amazing to happen. I think of rejection as a test sometimes. A test of my resolve. As we become adults we think we can order, preordain and organize a pathway to success. But in truth success, whatever that means, entails a far more circuitous route that entails dealing with a good amount of failure.

The life of an artist is fraught with failure.  Artists are frequently misunderstood, maligned, discredited, wrongly defined, and not respected. Artists need to be a thick skinned lot in that they have faced these prejudices their whole careers. I would maintain that photographic artists have it even worse in the misunderstood department for photography is such a ubiquitous medium that everyone feels they know it.

As I prepare to teach a course at the Griffin Museum in Creative Practice in a couple of weeks (March 30, 2016) I find myself thinking about what we define as being success and the effect failure has in that mix. In class we will be talking about fulfillment and how our expectations can lead us down the wrong path. I am looking forward to the discussion.

I try to look at failure from two sides: how bad this rejection is and if there is any hidden positive in the lack of success. Often there is.

This is another in a series of posts on some of the issues involved in being a professional artist.

"Greed. Greed is good. " The famous line by Gordan Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) from the movie Wall Street.

In a contrasting opposite in art it is: Doubt. Doubt is Bad. Present your art with ambivalence or be indecisive about the work you make and your art cannot have much future or exposure, I believe.

Why would I write that? Isn't some indecision part of making things? Isn't some working through various issues what we do as creative people? You can't be blind to other approaches, for sure.  But what we do as artists is all about making decisions, knowing what we want and what we don't want. Think about this: lighter/darker, contrastier/flatter, this included on the edge of the frame/this not included on the edge of the frame, printed smaller/printed bigger, less saturation/more saturation, less sharp/more sharp, emphasizing this color palette, that color palette, sharp here/sharp there, and on and on: literally hundreds if not thousands of decisions to be made on a per image basis. 

Let's look at a few scenarios. 

-You're in class and it is time for you to present your new work. You pin the prints up. You say that you're not sure about this print or that one. You can't state with clarity what your project is about. You're not sure of the sequence or in the printing of the works, are indecisive about their size, not sure whether they should be in black and white or color.We know how this class is going to turn out.

-You've made an appointment to show the new gallery in town your work. The night before you've driven your family nuts with your problem about which prints to bring. At the presentation you talk a lot and try to explain the compromises in the making of the pictures; this telephone pole was in the way, just before this photograph was made there was this wonderful moment (which you missed), this is the best print you could make from this underexposed frame, you felt this picture needed to be in the portfolio even though it is a little out of focus, etc. We know how this interview is going to turn out.

-You're helping hang your new show. You're not sure if the sequence should run left to right or right to left. You try double stacking the framed prints but can't tell if that's a good idea or not. You've printed two versions of one image but can't decide which one to use. During the day you ask the gallery staff for their opinions (which vary widely) from the owner all the way down to the intern delivering coffee. At the opening the next week you are sure you've sequenced the prints wrong and that the mistake kills the show. We know how this show is going to turn out.

Or, while working on your new project you seek advice, opinion and response but filter these opinions with your conviction about the work's direction and execution. 

You ask for help editing the work and listen hard to what your trusted colleagues say.

You know when the project is finished but are open to different interpretations.

You begin to show it around; a colleague, a gallery owner, a museum curator, an editor. Although rejected by some you carry on, sure of the rightness of the work. Their opinion matters but does not  dissuade you about the efficacy of the work. In thinking of the reactions you're getting you go back through the work and make a few revisions, change the sequence by one image, and reprint a couple of prints.

At some point, quite simply, you move on as you've begun working on a new project and you are eager to acquire the pictures.

1 1/2 years later you get a call from the museum curator who wants to include the project in a three person show of work by artists working within the same idea as yours. And, oh yes, they are printing a catalogue of the show.

I believe that doubt is the self fulfilling prophecy of failure in making art. I would rather see clear and bold total wrongness in a project than a project riddled with self doubt, misgivings and apprehensions. 

Look, being an artist is an egotistical thing. Making art is essentially putting yourself out there for all to see. Of course, they're going to be critical. Taking lumps comes with the position, my friends. If you can't stand being in someone's cross hairs maybe it's time to consider what your real objectives are.

The other thing that's critical here, as a foundation by which you can build up into work that embodies self confidence, is the realization that all the responses, reactions, reviews, critiques and evaluations don't mean anything, for you really need to make the work to make the work. Making work for praise is not good, for with this you are  beginning to fall into a very large trap. This is radical and please know that I am looking through a prism of making art with aspiration to a high level. Those that make work to garner positive reactions, reviews, sales, etc. are sunk. I don't believe an artist should make work by calculation, by thinking through steps necessary to achieve a certain goal.

Doubt. Throw it out.

Calculation. Next up in the series.