how to be a great artist---by gardega

If you are determined (or have a deep rooted wish to be an "artiste") I would like to offer up the rules of engagement that I have gathered up like crumbs in a german forest over the years.

the rules:

1) First you must have a great and unforgettable name before you even take a step onto the rocky path towards fame. Names as Picasso, Dali, Goya, Magritte, Kubin. These are names that carry with them the faint yet unmistakable odor of grandeur and destiny.


2) second it is best to have rich parents as you will not have to pick old pizza out of trash bins for ten years as you strive against impossible odds that would weigh down the most heroic of figures. Gardega had not such luxuries but you can compensate with stubbornness and tenacity and know that one day after the ten thousandth try you will find the right filament to light the bulb of truth and success.


3)thirdly, you must think for yourself and avoid the groupthink of modern life and it is best to be an individual to the 9th degree if you are understood or not you will be better off as it is much better to fail as Gardega than to be another at any cost.

4) Press my friend!!! If you are an unkown artist it is because you are not putting your turkey neck on the chopping block of fear and rejection. It is best to be known and to have people read about you and to buy your art. If you would prefer to hide in the shadows and drive a milk truck down the road of failed destinies you are so entitled! It is good to be on TV and radio and in the gossips and on the pavement casting the long shadows of envy among your comrades.

5) throw out your television. If you spend your time in front of the idiot box your mind with bog down like a chicken in a glue factory. Read those little things called books and research and study and do geometry and be not lazy. If you need to visit bacchus when your mind is weighed down with problems of analytical geometry and you cannot sleep then wine is fine and as baudelaire famously said "stay drunk young man" stay drunk on art, and life and wisdom and words.