DISCLAIMER:
This article is pure satire. I myself am going to art school and am writing from experience as an actual starving artist in Northeast Wisconsin as well as San Francisco CA. I am poking fun at stereotypes that I have encountered in my time as a working artist as well as popular stereotypes of artists. If you are offended in way by this article, stop reading it.
PART I: Your presence
Is there an aching in your soul? A dark unexplainable pain that can only be expressed through your brilliant artwork? Through painting or photography or sculpture or whatever?
Being an artist is not easy. You must first off have an affinity for taking yourself too seriously, claiming nothing like your art has EVER been done before, and severe agoraphobia.
You must DETEST eating, sleeping, feeling happy, and popular movies.
First things first; Your look must give a statement about your feelings toward society. I want you to be staring into a blackhole when you open your closet. Everything you own must be black. Black shirts, black socks, black pants. And don’t forget your black berret.
If your dresser drawers look like they are filled with squid ink, you’re on the right track.
You should be waking up between 1 – 4 PM, because you were up all night working on your art and definitely not watching youtube videos.
Start your day off by going through art magazines and circling galleries you think you’ll get into. Call the galleries you have contacted a dozen times again, and leave an angry message.
If your doing all of this already then good for you. You can now move onto the more difficult step: Choosing a strange / unpopular relegion.
This can be anything from Athiesm to Buddhism to spirituality. The point is, it CANNOT be mainstream. When you tell people your relegion you want them to laugh awkwardly and then change the subject. Stay away from satanism though, people may just think your reaching. Relegions you CANNOT be are:
Agnostic: It just means you are plain indecisive. No one takes indecisive people seriously.
Christian: Too manstream. WAYYY to mainstream. Not to mention scary.
Catholic: Your a starving artist so your already depressed. Skip it.
Jewish: Kind of like being catholic, except with money.
Whatever relegion you choose make sure you pick up a book on it, read the first chapter and never touch the book again. You only want to be able to defend it a little, not seem like a fanatic.
Next on the checklist is hate. You MUST hate pop-culture and all things mainstream. If you have a TV, throw it out the window. If your doing your job right, you shouldn’t even have a window to throw a TV out of if you had a TV to begin with.
You must be aware of pop-culture however, so make sure you go a cafe or something and watch FOX-news every once in awhile.
You must have very unusual tastes in EVERYTHING. Music is a good place to start. Take everything you know about melody and structure and form and forget it all. Listen to noise. Tell people that Prurient soothes you.
And make sure the only movies you watch are indepentent films – especially the bad ones.
Remember, the only reason Andy Warhol made millions is because he sold himself out. You are better than Andy Warhol.
Next: Pt. II: Choosing a medium