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In Episode 5 Re-Invent Yourself, I talk about how the late David Hillman Curtis, who passed yesterday 10 years ago, showed me that re-inventing yourself as an artist is important. Many have done so and many keep doing it, including myself.
Reinvent yourself
“Be prepared to reinvent yourself. Be prepared to go out on a limb occasionally, and be prepared to do the things that you feel strongly about.”
-Hillman Curtis
Remembering Hillman Curtis
Yesterday on April 12, it has been 10 years since David Hillman Curtis passed. He was the father of Flash and made scalable Flash movies for the Internet that were not able to download heavy files or stream videos. He was a master at that. Hillman went from Flash to Film. He bought a camera and started shooting the people who came to his studio. From there, he went on with artists’ portraits that can still be seen on the net. Hillman evolved in making a documentary and working on the Happy film of Stephan Sagmeister. He, unfortunately, passed before the film was finished.
The quote “Be prepared to reinvent yourself” really struck home when I read it. At the time, I was stuck in a vacuum, not knowing which side to go to. I wanted to paint and step away from the digital design world. It became boring. I love film and stepped into that and made some documentaries. Got back into music and started recording a huge volume of solo works by Charles Koechlin till tinnitus struck.
At that point, I truly had to rethink my creative life and re-invent myself. I tried generative art with Joshua Davies, but I am not a programmer. It was fun dabbling around and just starting by changing little bits of his code to see what happened. Even when I could watch the little changes in the animations for hours and time and time again change something by simply asking the question, what if… I did not feel satisfied, it just did not click.
At that point, I got that one sentence: “You need to be prepared to reinvent yourself”, and so I did. I finally took up my great love for portraits and painting again and never looked back. Hillman showed it throughout his design career. Now, if you think that this happens only once in your life as an artist, forget it.
What does reinventing mean?
So what does reinventing really mean? Is it doing something completely different, like stopping with art and starting something else? You can if you feel the need, but I talk about reinventing as an artist. It can mean you change a particular size to something bigger or smaller. It can be a change of colour palette if you have worked for a long time with the same. I know that we can have times that fit a specific colour palette. It can be that you go from realistic to non-realistic, or abstract. Or From landscape to still life or from painting physically to painting digitally. It means you have to be open to possibilities and always have the willingness to expand.
Reinventing yourself sounds very drastic, and it can be but doesn’t need to be. Expanding your skills is good, expanding your horizon is a necessity. Always growing your skills. Julia Cameron told the story of the elephant. A blind person touched it and thought it only had a short tail. Another one felt the belly and someone else the trunk. But it still was one elephant, and so are true artists. Their creativity knows no boundaries, they set their boundaries, but we are so much more.
Why is reinventing Important?
That is why re-inventing yourself is important. The artist Guston went from abstract art to, for his fans, realistic art. They could not understand, but he needed to. The change even ruined their friendship with his best friend Morton Feldman, who was inspired by his work. The change was something he could not understand. Michael Jackson probably re-invented himself and his art more than any other artist. And oh, how many problems did people, including fans, have to accept and follow the changes he underwent, and not only his face but everything he created. It is still a cause of ‘invented’ stories or gossip.
Reinventing yourself as an artist is so important because we are the ones who create a world that wasn’t there before. Most people don’t like change, at first. They need time to adjust and then will follow along. But it never starts that way, and that is because many artists reinvent themselves without shouting to the world ‘I am now reinventing myself just so you know. No, it doesn’t work that way. Picasso changed his style so quickly that art historians who are very bound by labels, had difficulties putting him in a label box. Let me now tell you a secret. I am currently re-inventing myself as an artist. My work will change, but my WHY stays what it is.
Re-inventing yourself as an artist is, in my opinion, one of the most important things to be open to. Doing things you really feel you need to do, you are not only the tail of the elephant, nor the belly or the trunk; you are the whole elephant. It keeps you awake, sharp and most importantly, creative.