I’ve been on a streak past 5 years now. This streak where most of what I work on will never see the light of day. And by most I mean pretty much all of it. I’ve gotten used to it for the most part, but there are still moments where it gets frustrating. No matter how long I do this, it can be difficult to grind on something for days or weeks, figure out some new little thing that you’re proud of, only to remind yourself that its most likely destined to be shelved somewhere for eternity.
I shouldn’t complain. I knew the score when I started out doing this type of work. A fanboy love of entertainment media and the prospect of being able to contribute to that world in some way was worth anonymity. Perhaps at the core of it all was a fear to really put myself out there that played a role. It’s less of a personal investment helping others figure out their ideas.
It can be healthy to create work that you know isn’t going to be seen by a wide audience. While it might only be a few people who see it, its still necessary to give it 100%. Production work teaches you to be humble and let go. To not be so precious about your work. Its art that serves a purpose in a larger plan as opposed to being individually appreciated as a standalone work of art.
I still love the challenge of it. To take what are often very abstract ideas and visually problem solve them into coherent usable designs can be challenging at times, but its also fun as hell. The process of problem solving and realization is what I enjoy most. Often, the finished piece is something that I don’t feel a strong connection or sense of ownership to. I may be happy with it, but it’s not mine, I wouldn’t have made it on my own, and I’m often interpreting subject matter and ideas that aren’t mine, and due to this i often just don’t feel like i can take much credit for it. its complicated…
I’m soon rolling off of a project one been contributing to for almost 2 years now. it’s been a really killer gig where i got to work along side a rock star team of folks and tackle some really fun problems…but it was also a research-centric type thing, that while we ran it with the intention of developing and eventually releasing as an actual product, in the back of our heads we knew it would more than likely never be released to the public.
It takes a certain mindset to sink 40-60 hours a week into something that you kind of know that you’ll never get to show in your portfolio. Artists are pleasers by nature and we create stuff with the hope that it will be looked at and appreciated on some level, best case scenario by our peers. It’s a feedback loop that helps validate what I do and keeps those creative fires burning. At the end of the day I’m just a dumb monkey who wants to be appreciated for performing a task well. It inspires me to do it more often and push to improve.
By not being able to show my production work, it can sometimes become difficult to gauge whether or not the work was even decent. I worry that without being able to plug into that public feedback loop my work and skills will atrophy and weaken in weird ways I might not be aware of. It keeps me up at night.
You can be doing stuff for literally the largest entities on the planet and eventually have no idea whether the work you are doing is objectively even any good. Sure maybe it gets approved, but who’s really approving it? The higher it goes up the ladder its someone with absolutely not background in art, or a board room of people with little to no experience in this. So yes, perhaps its satisfied the task at hand, but am I improving at my craft at all?
There’s also the issue of keeping the portfolio current in order to secure new work. 20 years in it’s largely repeat clients, but you don’t ever want to limit your ability to secure new ones either. It can be difficult rounding up recent samples of work when most relevant examples from the past 5+ years are NDA’d.
I know I know, I could make more sample production pieces in between actual ones but there’s always the whole personal work component to it. Its those bursts of creative inspiration that’ll just randomly pop in there and blow your mind… sometimes it’ll be the smallest most inconsequential thought or event that will plant that seed in your head. But it’ll stay there, worming its way deeper and you have little choice but to submit to it. You could do otherwise, but the only way you’re really gonna scratch that itch is to embrace this spark.
That itchiness is something I’ve continued to struggle with for the past 20 something years now. trying to balance that need to get production work approved with this desire to make stuff that i want to. there are times when I’m able to keep a personal painting going in the background that i can work on in between stuff. but i won’t lie, it eats me alive the whole time. this can be especially frustrating coming up on 5 years with pretty much nothing i can publicly show.
I remind myself that I’m financially compensated for shelving my creative tendencies in favor of performing as a reliable service provider…. And anyone that tells you that you have to starve to be an artist is doing it wrong. You can make a good living doing this if you can commercialize your skill. But is making money being a successful artist? Creatively at least, thats has not been my experience.
By stifling those creative tendencies and grinding out piles of corporate presentation boards instead of some cool ass oil painting that really gets my juices flowing, Im suppressing those very feelings that got you into this shit in the first place. And that hurts a little sometimes.
I get jealous of guys who’ve found commercial success painting what they love and can just wail at it. I look at them and can see that its provided them the opportunity to really dig in and discover the layers and depth of the subject matter and techniques that they personally enjoy as artists.
I wonder if this is a less stressful existence as a creative, But then reading Jesper’s recent post about how his struggles with his own success in this arena is a reminder that no matter where we end up we’ve all got our own demons to wrestle with.
SO here I am, rolling off of this two year project that ill likely never be able to ever show anything I’ve done for it. My hope is that moving forward I can try to shift proprieties around some and make time for at least a little more work I can personally invest in, but who knows? Life gets in the way of things we want to do and usually only leaves room for the stuff you have to do. So what are you gonna do?
Since I have no professional work to show at the moment, figured id sprinkle this post with some drawings of our dogs that i’ll do when they’re sleeping and I have a minute. They make great models. Also posting a final shot of that big painting I started last year. Finally got a good photo of it.
In case you missed the video up above, here is a link:Â https://youtu.be/k_phYD2PEy8
I always find that doing my personal creative work that nobody really sees helps add a little spark here and there on the ‘boring’ day to day stuff. The frustration here is dealing with everyday Joe’s or people that have no training other than what I call ‘secretary art’ (Microsoft templates or worse) and trying to explain to them why using a script font in all caps and piling three pieces of clip art backfilled with camouflage pattern doesn’t work as a logo and how that affects people looking to purchase their product. There are times I have to fight the urge to do free work because something is so bad they’ve done that we have to produce and I don’t want to be accused of having had anything to do with their ‘design’.
i completely agree. personal work helps you eastablish your artistic “identity” and I often find myself unlocking little approaches or techniques that ill implement into client work.
Man, so many good thoughts in here, Coro.
I once had a conversation with a friend, posing the question:
“How much would someone have to pay you to never paint again?”
Would you never accept any price?
Would you take $10 Million and just focus on Modern Dance or something else instead?
As silly as it sounds, it brought up a lot of questions about what we actually NEED our art for.
Mixing your passions with your livelihood (and your ego) is always a tough balancing act.
I think you manage it much better than most.
oh man….like i couldn’t even imagine what id do with myself if i couldn’t ever paint again! Making art extends beyond just making pictures, its an opportunity to sit down to ponder and strategize things heppening in your life; problems, struggles, next steps. in addition to it being an occupation the act has become a sort of personal therapy. not sure any amount of money would be worth my sanity. id prolly end up having to blow some of that 10 mil on therapy lol.
Loved the two-track approach to this post: the musings and the dog drawings (which are wonderful).
I have a few dumb questions, though. I presume those NDA agreements technically preclude you from sharing any images, regardless of whether or not the project gets completed, right? But still a lot of artists go ahead and share their concept work on blogs. How does this happen? Presumably some of these artists are violating their NDAs by sharing the work.
Do the media companies look the other way as long as the artists are: a) not profiting, b) saying nice things, and c) not releasing any spoilers? Is this tacit permissiveness still the case, or are the media companies issuing takedowns on such postings? Why would they do this? And is it harder to share work from projects that fail to be produced? Are any artists successfully negotiating statutes of limitations on the sharing of their work?
thank you so much James! happy you enjoyed this post 🙂
now you know as well as i do theres no such thing as a dumb question 🙂
From my experience NDA’d work can end up out in the public through various means. a lot of the time if the project has been released clients are totally fine with artists showing their work so long as there’s some acknowledgment of credit. We have it written in our contracts that if a project is released, we have the right to show credited work in our portfolio for self promotional purposes. Under most circumstances you can really only show the stuff, you cant sell prints for instance.
sometimes, (well actually a lot of the time) projects will be cancelled before they come out, leaving a bunch of that preproduction work hanging in limbo. if the company is indeed out of business its usually okay to show stuff, since theres nobody to come after you for it. still worth sending out emails to the relevant parties to get their blessings tho. Never want to burn a bridge. In most cases, we will seek out permission if we want to show something from a cancelled project. sometimes they say no, and you have to respect that.
lastly there are those projects like what im rolling off of now, where it was mostly research and experimental stuff, or sometimes its Super secret internal IP development, sometimes it comes down to tensions or issues between clients up the chain that are completely out of your control, but yeah sometimes it just gets shelved and theres nothing you can really do about it.. i have 80 gigs of art sitting on my desktop from this last job that ill likely never be able to show. bitter pill? maybe a little. theres stuff in there im proud of and it hurts a little, but im quick to remind myself that theres always a chance of this happening, and if nothing else, in addition to feeding my family, i picked up some cool new tricks and approaches ill be able to use on future jobs. glass half full i guess haha
Beautiful drawings! (and a interesting, sympathy inspiring post!)
Thank you so much Paul! Very flattered you like the drawings. though ive gotta be honest and credit these to having some great models to work from 😛
Thanks for this post and your descriptions about your thoughts and feelings while working like that. I can relate to that very much.
In fact now I’ve got to cope with the big downside of not being able to show work from the last 3years at all.. with that I’m getting more and more frustrated with the ‘curse of the NDA’ as I’ve come to call it since I get no jobs anymore. And I don’t know what to do..