Category: Discussions/Essays

Looking at Our Own Work

A close up of Pablo Picasso seen here working on his gigantic (over 25 ft long) mural masterpiece, Guernica.

“You could learn more about yourself from studying your own work than by looking at anyone else’s.” — Robert Henri, Artist

To look, and to do so with honesty and clarity, at our own work is one of the trickiest things to do as an artist. With our minds so easily preoccupied with our ambitions and expectations, it is quite difficult to be truly objective in our analysis. We are often “too close” to the work. That said, it is absolutely essential that we do so. Like taking stock with our lives, it is good and proper to periodically see where our work is in its level of clarity and execution as well as where we’re at in terms of our own creative development.

A young James Baxter at work. 2D masters such as Baxter are always periodically flipping their work to see how it plays, before they play it (on film).

Of course, as has been mentioned here before, the most obvious way to get immediate feedback is to get it from other people — colleagues, supervisors, teachers, coaches etc. If we want our work to read to others, and this is most certainly true working in a commercial field or on a project where the work needs to trigger a response from a larger audience, then that is by far the best option (we only have to be mindful that all opinions are biased). However, if the work is more personal, or even innovative, feedback from others isn’t always best or appropriate. Trends and methods come and go in art as they do in everything else in a market economy. Common people, including your typical work colleague, can often have common minds — minds stuck on set ways of seeing. And sometimes, it isn’t even possible to find feedback from others. For a fresher perspective, sometimes we have to look elsewhere or try something else. But the first thing we must do is to stop and move away from the work. Afterwards, we can begin to look to more creative ways to self-critique.

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher

Ways of Self-Critique:

Here are some suggestions (and I apologize again making another list but it is the simplest way to present options). Some are more technical while others are more ethereal:

1) Look at your work from a different perspective. Flip the horizontal (or use a mirror). Or look at it from a distance. If you’re an animator, check other camera views: perspective, side, front and top views. Consider changing the lighting/rendering to silhouete or toon shade option. Flaws in work are often revealed this way with striking obviousness.

2) Look at it as if it’s not yours. Does it make any sense if you didn’t know the vision, story or ideas involved? Never forget that your default state is that you know what it’s about and that this knowledge blinds you to seeing the truth. Breakdown aspects of it and critique that element exclusively and objectively as possible. For example, if animating dialogue, take the sound away and just look at the images and movement. Does the acting still read?

3) Go thru the checklists. Does it meet your goals and all the requirements you need to make it work? Does it hit all the director’s notes/concerns? Did you ACE the shot? And what about the flaws? Has the checklist of errors — and you should always make one for each shot — been addressed?

4) Compare your work to something similar (in style or idea) that is really good. How does your work hold up next to it? How does it compare to that of your colleagues who consistently do good work? Consider also comparing it to the works of old masters. This has been a time-tested method for artists who would become new masters in their own era. When I joined the 3D animation world, there were few if any established 3D animators of note. Besides pushing each other, me and most of my colleagues had to compare our work with the higher standards of long-established classical 2D masters. Time-tested art is often far superior to that of contemporary work and trendy tastes.

5) Compare your work to your older work. When it comes to development, nothing is as important. There should be marked improvement. If there hasn’t been, again, ask why? When this happens, the problems are usually more deep-seated and possibly environment-induced — seek professional coaching advice if so. Bad thinking not only inhibits growth, it can reverse it. Otherwise, if you’re better today than you were yesterday, you’re off to a good start.

Conclusion:

It’s important to self-assess. To do good art requires honest reflection on the work and ourselves personally. It’s not about ambition or even about getting better. It’s far simpler than that. It’s the acknowledgement of the present, where we are and where our art stands. If we make mistakes and learn from them, it’s a good day. Then we move on to the next piece, idea or dream. We keep working.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ― Søren Kierkegaard, Philosopher

Self-Worth

Henry Miller, one of the boldest, bravest and most unique voices in American Literature.

As the year comes to a close, it’s easy to reflect back and wonder: Was it all worth it? What is the worth of what we do? And, what are we worth being one of many billions of people on, what Carl Sagan refers to as, this pale blue dot?

The earth, only a pale blue dot in a vast unlimited universe.

As artists, we face doubts, perhaps more so than any other folks on this planet. The world isn’t kind to the artist, at least not until he has proven his value to the market. Even then, perhaps we (or our work) are only seen as commodities or symbols of success, convenient devices to celebrate further consumption and economic growth while it is the trend to do so. Like all artists, doubt surfaces in my own mind from time to time as it does any other creative. It’s not hard for that to happen. I still remember distinctly when a friend told me that all I do is build sand castles (which I suppose reflected his own view on human life at the time). And after I suffered a career-altering injury, someone “jokingly” said to me that I’m now a has-been. And yet another time some else told me I was delusional, as to why or for what reason to this day I still do not know. This kind of criticism and casual condemnation is common for the artist to receive. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s easy to criticize what’s on stage sitting in the cheap seats. The common cynical mind is a backseat driver, a calculating cerebrum filled with cunning and cleverness — it can’t possibly understand what it takes to create. To dream, to build upon a vision, and to dive so vulnerably into the creative process day in and day out with courage is not something the non-artist or someone lacking in passion or compassion can comprehend. In business terms, they don’t see the percentage in it. Nor do they have the discipline.

Unlike so many of his followers, Einstein understood the limits of logic.

This Christmas Eve morning, I was reading from Henry Miller’s words on writing. Not only did I find solace, but confirmation — confirmation that being an artist is the only choice I can make with this life. And I am both happy and grateful for it. What any one else thinks, matters not one iota. And, if what I do makes some kind of difference, offers some kind of inspiration and hope or brings just a little bit of beauty into one person’s life, then it has all been worth it. With hopes that his words may offer you the same kind of comfort as it did for me, I share this page of his beautiful writing here:

“I obey only my own instincts and intuitions. I know nothing in advance. Often I put down things which I do not understand myself, secure in the knowledge that later they will become clear and meaningful to me. I have faith in the man who is writing, who is myself, the writer. I do not believe in words, no matter if strung together by the most skillful man: I believe in language, which is something beyond words, something which words give only an inadequate illusion of. Words do not exist separately, except in the minds of scholars, etymologists, philologists, etc. Words divorced from language are dead things, and yield no secrets.

He continues:

“A man is revealed in his style, the language which he has created for himself. To the man who is pure at heart I believe that everything is as clear as a bell, even the most esoteric scripts. For such a man there is always mystery, but the mystery is not mysterious, it is logical, natural, ordained, and implicitly accepted. Understanding is not a piercing of the mystery, but an acceptance of it, a living blissfully with it, in it, through and by it. I would like my words to flow along in the same way that the world flows along, a serpentine movement through incalculable dimensions, axes, latitudes, climates, conditions. I accept a priori my inability to realize such an ideal. It does not bother me in the least. In the ultimate sense, the world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the consciousness of failure. In the realization of this, failure is itself eliminated. Like the primal spirit of the universe, like the unshakable Absolute, the One, the All, the creator, i.e., the artist, expresses himself by and through imperfection. It is the stuff of life, the very sign of livingness. One gets nearer to the heart of truth, which I suppose is the ultimate aim of the writer, in the measure that he ceases to struggle, in the measure that he abandons the will. “

And finally, with assertiveness, he concludes:

“The great writer is the very symbol of life, of the non-perfect. He moves effortlessly, giving the illusion of perfection, from some unknown center which is certainly not the brain center but which is definitely a center, a center connected with the rhythm of the whole universe and consequently as sound, solid, unshakable, as durable, defiant, anarchic, purposeless, as the universe itself. Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life. The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.” — Henry Miller, Writer.

I wish you all a beautiful conclusion to this decade, and may the new one that comes bring you much joy and meaning in your creative pursuits, whatever form they may take.