Art by Niki Stage
What are your dreams? What keeps you up at night and makes you get out of bed in the morning? What makes your heart pound and your creative juices flow? Artists tend to dream big, which leads us to strange career paths as well as the impulses that underpin great creative output -- but what if we don’t dream big enough? And what if we let our dreams get away from us? Jake Parker, Will Terry, and Lee White discuss the importance of dreams and dreaming big, and try to pin down the nature of that thing that makes us struggle against conventional wisdom, creative block, and financial stress, to make art.
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INTRO
Wouldn’t it be fun to talk about dreams? Our dreams, our student’s dreams, the SVS communities’ dreams? And why you should dream big as well as small.
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH DREAMING BIG?
We grow up in a world that is academically focused -- our parents might want to raise doctors, lawyers, or accountants. What about us artists? What if money is secondary to our dreams? Jake’s dad wanted him to become a brain surgeon -- he has great hand-eye coordination and is smart, and would have made a great surgeon. To his credit, he has been very supportive of Jake’s art career. There is, however, an aspirational wish there that is also present in most parents.
You have to balance your career with what you want to do, and what your parents want for you. Most parents put so much effort and resources into their children, and you want to honor that. But a lot of parents just want their kids to be successful regardless of what they do.
We tie the idea of making money into the concept of success. You could be a great, talented artist that doesn’t make a lot of money, or a mediocre artist that makes a lot of money because of their marketing. What if we lived in a perfect socialist state, in which we all had everything we needed regardless of what work we did? Would the art be different? Would everyone achieve everything they needed to if money were no longer an object? Would there be enough doctors or would everyone be an artist?
“Twenty-year old heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical empire JAMIE JOHNSON turns his camera on himself and ten of his friends, offering a remarkably personable documentary about one of the smallest and least-likely-to-agree-to-be-interviewed minorities on the planet: the children of the vastly rich.”
Sometimes getting your dream, quitting your day job and going pro, can be bad. Sometimes it isn’t what you want after all, and sometimes working towards your dream is your identity, and you lose it after you achieve it.
Lee studied with a guy at ArtCenter who was really talented and got hired immediately -- he made six figures doing motion graphics, and then just quit and became a doctor. He was fully successful in his career but decided to go back and switch because he wasn’t fulfilled.
Simona is an accomplished research scientist that decided that she wanted to do children’s books.
Jake has friends who have lucrative careers in banking and finance and other things, and they admire him for following his passion and making a career from it. There might be an element of regret in their giving up their freedom for a secure career. Jake also sometimes wishes he could go on the same vacations his banker friends go on -- the grass is always greener on the other side.
“When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money” - Oscar Wilde
If you didn’t have to worry about money, what would you pursue as an artist? When Jake set money aside and instead focused on his passion, it paid off over the long run. He doesn’t necessarily suggest you do that though, because you have to be good at it and there is a lot of luck involved. It’s the American Idol problem, for every good singer there are hundreds of terrible ones who think they are good and can’t hear themselves. If you listen to Bono telling you to follow your dreams, it is important to know that he is the 1% of musicians who has made a career out of his music.
Is singing a good comparison to drawing? Some people truly cannot sing because of their voices, but you could learn to draw easier than you could learn to sing. If you’re five feet tall, you have physical limitations keeping you from being in the NBA. Does that exist in art?
MIKE ROWE - FOLLOW OPPORTUNITY, NOT PASSION
You should follow your opportunity rather than your passion -- there might be more opportunities designing t-shirts rather than making a comic right out of the gate. Find where opportunities are and then bring your skills and passions to it. Jake thought he was passionate about animation but realized that it wasn’t something he wanted to eat, sleep, and breathe. His skillset let him transition to concept art, and he brought his passion with him and made a career out of it. Jake continuously put feelers out to see if there was opportunity here or there. Jake has always tried to make a go at comics but has always gone to places where he makes more money. If money weren’t an issue he would draw comics all the time, and surely one of his comics would eventually strike a chord and be the next Hellboy.
The one thing Lee is jealous of people with regular day jobs is the lack of a constant drive to continually improve at their craft. Artists have a constant need to be better at things, this doesn’t exist for bankers or HR people. There is a constant bar that needs to be raised that doesn’t end, and doesn’t finish at 5pm at the end of the work day. Jake disagrees, there are people who have regular day jobs that are passionate about it and are always trying to get better at it and level up. The difference is that those types of jobs are not wrapped up in your identity. Instead of their job, they introduce themselves as their hobbies or other things.
Two professionals with regular day jobs that decided to become authors and begin writing stories. They use their expertise in their fields to write novels -- science and law respectively. There’s something to be said about going down the path of dreaming big. If you’ve chosen the path of the artist or the illustrator, you can’t tiptoe down it -- you should blaze down it because you’ve already committed to a crazy path and you should go for it all the way.
Will asked this in the forums at SVSLearn.com, and wanted to know what SVS students’ dreams were. He got some great responses. He thinks that in order to dream big, you have to have the experience of smaller and medium sized dreams coming true. We don’t want to dream big because if we do, we’re saying it’ll never happen. We don’t want to look foolish if the dreams don’t happen.
Most people had the dream of writing their own children’s book or graphic novel. That’s also Will’s dream -- he wants to write a children’s book, even though he has written some very successful self-published books. That is a great goal for children’s book illustrators. One of Will’s early dreams was to make money with his art.
Answers from our forum family:
Anna: Great question! I'm very new to all this and unlikely too famous any time soon, however, in my ideal world I'd be writing and illustrating my own books as well as illustrating other people's books! Fame and recognition wise - not after much but my dream is to one day see kids being inspired to choose a character I've created and dress up as that character on a World Book Day! That would be a sign that I've "made it". 😁
That’s awesome -- some people are afraid to wish for fame, but why not? Being successful in publishing entails a certain amount of fame or notoriety. Jake isn’t “famous” but he is in certain circles. It’s cool to see kids dress up in your designs, but it’s not enough of an incentive because of how much energy the act of creation takes -- it’s a nice bonus, but the joy of the creative process is the main drive for Jake. Jake doesn’t show all of his work because some of it needs to be just for him, and not for sale.
LEE’S SELF PORTRAIT NUDES (REALISTIC)
A risk that comes with fame -- you get pigeonholed.
Steve Huston got famous painting boxers, and now any time he paints something that isn’t a boxer, they ask him why he didn’t paint a boxer. It’s hard to get around your reputation for a specific topic.
Will got married this year (Congrats!) and didn’t mention he was an illustrator to his wife during their early time dating. He never mentioned his notoriety from his career. They were on a hike, and someone asked him “are you Will Terry?” It happened at the grocery store and at other places too.
Laurie: I'm an amateur and planning to retire from my real job in a couple of years at which point my dream life is to spend all morning at my art desk drinking coffee and painting, and the afternoons taking long walks through the English countryside. I will produce such incredible illustrations during that art time that publishers will beg me to illustrate professionally and I will say, "Thank you for the compliment but I prefer to remain retired," after which I will head back out into the countryside with my walking staff and sketchbook.
The problem with this dream is that my art skills would have to vastly improve, and I live in New York state not England 🙂 None of that, I am sure, is what you are looking for but since you asked....
This is exactly what Will wants! He wants people to dream big. He wrote down his early dreams -- he wanted to support his family with money from art and illustration. It happened, and all of a sudden he was making money and had a career. He wanted to make enough money to buy a house and that happened too. Then he wanted to illustrate a whole children’s book, not just magazine illustrations, and that happened too. What happens: we get used to setting these goals that are attainable, but we don’t bother to venture beyond that in our minds and think about 10 or 20 or 30 year goals and dreams. If we dream big, big things can happen. If we don’t, then we limit things from happening. Will had a dream of illustrating ebooks, and that happened. He had a dream of creating an online art school and that happened too. Folio Academy was the first edition, but SVSLearn is the current version. One of Will’s goals from 15 years ago was to earn enough money to take 2-3 hours off a day just to exercise, hiking in the mountains. And that became a reality. He still wants to write and illustrate his own children’s book -- the thing is not to just write and illustrate any book, but the exact book he wants to produce, in which he doesn’t have to cut any corners.
Poly creates 3D sets of his scenes, photographs them, and then illustrates them digitally and places his characters in that town. Will wants to do that, and has always been interested in that.
Will wants to open a restaurant, because he loves to cook. His other dream is to buy a ranch, he has one in mind (the Trefoil Ranch in Utah) and would love to have artist’s retreats there. That’s a pie in the sky dream. It’s important to have big dreams because big things can come true if you are willing to think big.
Sometimes you can dream too big, though, and ego can become an issue. Practical dreams and a realistic analysis of what makes you happy can be safer and better sometimes. Lee is going through a career change, and asked himself some very practical questions about what he wants and what he likes, and has modeled his career around that. When is Lee happiest? When he comes up with an idea, doesn't have to put it through a series of approval processes, and then just makes it and puts it in front of people, who can buy it if they like it. That’s where his idea for his co-op gallery came from.
There is a difference between wanting to be famous and wanting to be known for what you do. If all you want is fame and fortune and don’t want to do any of the work to get there, or develop your craft, then that’s less good.
When you start moving in a direction, things start to happen in that direction, momentum begins to build and things fall in place.
Jake has made a summary:
Dream Big. Make sure it is grounded in what you actually want to do day-to-day. Being a famous artist is the result, the dream is making art daily. “I would love to spend my day doing xyz”
You create systems that, by nature of you doing them for years, your dream is a byproduct of that.
Keep your eye and your heart open to opportunity. Don’t feel like you’re betraying yourself if you follow an opportunity that aligns with your abilities but isn’t your original dream.
Josh: I think I'd like my kids to look at what I do and feel like they can do anything they want in life. I don't want them to feel like the path is narrow. I want them to feel they have creative rights to their own lives. But more than that, I want to be GOOD at it. I want to deliver great products that make people happy and be paid well for it. I don't like the idea that people have this impression that artists don't make money or that you might as well wait tables but you die on the sword for your craft. I want to be part of the reason that people elevate what an artist, designer or illustrator is worth and help other artists value their work to that same level.
To inspire your kids is a great dream. It’s focusing on the systems that you have built rather than the results.
8 Daily Habits Millionaires Have in Common
Dare to dream big!
LINKS
Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com. Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44
Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt
Lee White: leewhiteillustration.com. Instagram: @leewhiteillo
Alex Sugg: alexsugg.com
Aaron Painter: painterdraws.com. Instagram: @painterdraws
Daniel Tu: danieltu.co.
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