Destroy the idea that making art must be painful, as difficult as possible, must involve suffering in some way, or can only use primitive methods to qualify as “real” art. I had someone (a wealthy white man, because of course there’s a certain correlation to privilege going on) shame me the other day for painting *with electric lights on in the room* because The Great Artists all painted by natural light, candle light, or lamp light.  That somehow the way the paint sticking to the paper would be inherently *lesser* in some way for my not having to squint at it, or my having to wait until morning to do it. I frequently get people asking detailed questions about the lost-wax casting process, only to find out that it’s so they can judge me for whatever step they feel is “cheating” by using tools to do the job.  CAD design and stereolithographic prototyping?  SHAME!  I should have carved wax using a scalpel!  And when I sneezed and completely ruined the piece, I should start over like a REAL ARTIST, instead of getting away with pressing ctrl-z.  And if the scalpel cut me and I vomited and passed out because I really can’t handle blood, well, that’s what REAL ARTISTS DO.  THEY SUFFER AND BLEED FOR THEIR ART.  Electromelt to get the casting grain to 1800+F?  SHAME!  I should have stood over a crucible for thirty minutes with a torch!  NO WAIT BETTER YET, I should have built a smelting forge in my yard using medieval building techniques!  LIKE A REAL ARTIST WOULD. I do not live in medieval europe or a remote island or whatever bizarre scenario these people think REAL ARTISTS are sequestered to to produce ReAL ArT™.  Artists live in this world, the same world where you send email to communicate with someone INSTEAD OF STRAPPING A HAND-INKED PIECE OF HAND-SCRAPED VELLUM TO A TRAINED PIGEON LIKE A REAL LETTER WRITER WOULD YOU HACK.  We have better shit to do with our time, like cook meals and get our tags renewed at the DMV and cuss at excel spreadsheets, the same way you do, unless you CARRY AND USE AN ABACUS THE WAY A REAL ARITHMETICIAN WOULD YOU FRAUD. EVERYTHING AS HARD AS POSSIBLE, ALL THE TIME, OR IT DOESN’T COUNT.  WE DIE LIKE OUR ANCESTORS DID even though they worked their assess off to invent these tools and methods to make our lives easier so we wouldn’t have to suffer and waste so much time the way they did. Now look, I *might* go down a rabbit hole of creative exploration where I gather the rotting walnuts in my backyard and boil them for days to make olde timey ink for some project, because it delights me to do it, but I’m doing that malarkey on MY time and MY dime, I’m not doing it to justify my TRUE ARTISTICNESS to someone who thinks I need to hustle more to be granted some stamp of artistic enoughness that they somehow have the right to grant??? IDK, I’m just really sick of having to try to justify myself every single day to these people.  If you like the print/painting/pendant/bottle of leftover walnut ink and want to wear it / use it / hang it on your wall, buy it.  Enjoy it.  Don’t quiz me about how much I suffered and toiled and grovelled to make the piece to decide if I am Worthy of Your Patronage.  That’s some pretty toxic BS there buddy. I don’t make my barista grind my coffee beans with a mortar and pestle.  We clever tool-using monkeys invented burr grinders for that. I don’t ask my CPA if she’s keeping handwritten books in duplicate before I decide if I’m going to pay her to do my taxes. I don’t demand that my Uber driver raise and train horses and build me a carriage.  I just need a ride to the airport. Destroy the idea that suffering = worth. That difficulty = morality. That technology and efficiency = inferior, immoral, shameful, cheating, lazy. That Puritan legacy has got to go.
