MORE TWEETS....

It's great to have so many checking in on this question I put out to creative people of all kinds: How do you define success? Thanks, everyone. In response to some questions, rest assured: I'll be posting my own answer to this question in a day or two. Here's some more Tweets...

AlabamaByrd

@PeterAtLarge I define success when one or more of my doodles has a new home inside the smithsonian

closer2theart

@PeterAtLarge I don't think fine art is commercial, so the two don't go hand in hand, Success for the fine artist is where your art resides.

rking27

@PeterAtLarge Creativity isn't stifled by having goals. Set goals, accomplish them. Success is subjective I guess. How do you define it?

VisionTwits

@PeterAtLarge well for me is not really on material things but a the happiness I felt inside everytime I achieve or done something right.

ryanseslow

@PeterAtLarge - by re-defining it as I evolve Peter.

TheJoeNichols

@PeterAtLarge doing what you love the way you want and being profitable

konradprojects

@PeterAtLarge Still trying to figure that out. Being able to make the work AND get it out there is the bulk of it, I think.

bakafox

@PeterAtLarge Commercially I suppose I'd consider myself a success when I earn enough income to pay my debts, bills & get more supplies.

CrEEp3r

@PeterAtLarge When people are enjoying the time with my product and after a long time, they're still remember...

AsiaSuperLoop

@PeterAtLarge Also, I don't agree that the world is entirely commercial. That's a manufactured delusion that we've consented to.

AsiaSuperLoop

@PeterAtLarge Lastly, having a "willing" audience is enough. They can then listen/watch at the frictionless price point. Spam isn't power.

lubzi

@PeterAtLarge to continue creating. To seek to be my true self no matter what the price.To pursue goals of the spirit relentlesly & inspire

yavizbasalamah

@PeterAtLarge To me, financial security is the greatest form of success.

kotarohatch

Success? I'm searching what come to fruition for me. RT @PeterAtLarge #persistblog If you're a creative person, how do you define success?

hamlesh

@PeterAtLarge I am no longer one of those - but when I was, I guess achieving the targets outlined on the assignment?

pintbet

@PeterAtLarge Success = having a vision and achieving it

ValeriaZichella

@PeterAtLarge Goodmorning Mr PeterAtLarge.My answer: Just a walking into world's spirit, Success it's the language of the depressed world.

rickderwitsch

@PeterAtLarge It changes. Right now *success* lies in the Pleasure that I feel when creating. #persistblog

rickderwitsch

@PeterAtLarge Right now *success* resides in the process, without attachment to any outcomes.#persistblog

SrtaMCraftmatic

@PeterAtLarge well I really don't think about success,i'm more about happyness and feeling acomplish, success can be as simple as breathing

angusmacphee

@PeterAtLarge Success, seeing people reach out side and inside themselves in my classes & my paintings.

angusmacphee

@PeterAtLarge Ideally, to get some recognition, selling one's work is worth more than money.

SeverusSumaya

@peteratlarge when everyone knows your name for somthing you want to be known for. Money is extra.

Ankolie

@PeterAtLarge being finally known as an artist , make people feel the excitement I feel while painting when they look at a piece of my art

FissionFoto

@PeterAtLarge creative success = pushing the envelope + gallery representation, commercial success = selling enough to keep creating

marcjward

@PeterAtLarge when you can do something good for someone in the knowing they can never repay you.

iHeartPortnoy

@PeterAtLarge That is a good ? For me, success would mean not holding back creatively & breaking thru that fear of not being good enough.

mobymusic

@PeterAtLarge peter, this is a very intense question for me. Now at my age, i love doing music, i love the studio.

Success, (cont'd); and some Tweets

(From Matt Kramer)

This is in response to your question for Persist. I'm @mkramerl on Twitter.

A commercial world makes creative success much more easily definable. Indeed, the nature of capitalism and marketing seeks to convince us to define ourselves in terms of the creative output of a select group of people, let's call them "the creators" for convenience. For me, creative success derives itself quite naturally from this viewpoint. To be truly successful creatively, I must become a "creator".

Let me explain this in more depth. By creating and sharing my creation with the world, I put a piece of myself into the world ... I define myself in my own terms. My creation, whether it is painting or writing or a well-designed website, is saying to the world, on my behalf, "Look, I made this using the tools and imagination and experience I have. It represents an unrealized idea that was within my mind and is now released because I felt it was missing from the world. It was a part of me, and now it is a part of the world."

So success comes first and foremost from the realization that all of the items that money can buy can't really define you. They can be tools that aid you in achieving success, but they were created by others and can only approximate you. An analogy I thought of was that of using Corel Painter's auto-paint feature. It simulates painting a photograph by applying progressively smaller brush strokes. The problem is that it's never as good as the original, it's always a blurry approximation.

The second aspect of success, in my opinion, arises when someone can take in or absorb the meaning of our work. Without an audience, our creations are just physical (or electronic) manifestations of our defining thoughts. And so creative success is enhanced merely by the sincere feedback from or endorsement by at least one other individual. When this happens, we are understood and we understand ... that our "self" is important and recognized.

In a sense, this is a kind of paradoxical cycle. We create to feel successful and avoid expressing ourselves on the terms of other "creators". We typically charge for our creations because we live in a capitalist society and money is a near-necessity. Then someone buys our commercial creation and uses us as a "creator" to projectively define their character. This gives us a real sense of achievement and urges us to create more and, ironically, moves us further away from an indirect, commercial expression of the self.

AND TWEETS, FROM YESTERDAY...

SrtaMCraftmatic

@PeterAtLarge well I really don't think about success,i'm more about happyness and feeling acomplish, success can be as simple as breathing

angusmacphee

@PeterAtLarge Success, seeing people reach out side and inside themselves in my classes & my paintings.

angusmacphee

@PeterAtLarge Ideally, to get some recognition, selling one's work is worth more than money.

SeverusSumaya

@peteratlarge when everyone knows your name for somthing you want to be known for. Money is extra.

Ankolie

@PeterAtLarge being finally known as an artist , make people feel the excitement I feel while painting when they look at a piece of my art

FissionFoto

@PeterAtLarge creative success = pushing the envelope + gallery representation, commercial success = selling enough to keep creating

marcjward

@PeterAtLarge when you can do something good for someone in the knowing they can never repay you.

iHeartPortnoy

@PeterAtLarge That is a good ? For me, success would mean not holding back creatively & breaking thru that fear of not being good enough.

mobymusic

@PeterAtLarge peter, this is a very intense question for me. Now at my age, i love doing music, i love the studio.

THANKS TO ALL!

Success

In response to Persist: The Blog's question, What Does Success Mean to You, Lori Agostino writes:

I have a love/hate relationship with the word success. On one hand, I haven't a clear picture of what success is (as defined by society) and yet, when I think about how it pertains to my life, I "feel" very successful. But if I think about what society, or what I believe society thinks is success, I fall far short from our society's standards. Somehow I can't really separate this in my head though, and perhaps that is where I should leave the definition to stay, and rather keep in tune with how I "feel" about it.

I FEEL success comes from moments in time, that weave together to tell my story. An honesty of my creative process shared or alone.

Since I work in film as an art director and also paint, I find my time fragmented by a grueling schedule that sometimes leaves me wanting for that connection that only happens in my studio painting, and yet at times while working on a film there are moments of a whole art dept. working in concert to create something great, it's rare but it happens. If I am able to weave these times together, I feel successful. It's a continuity of my creative vision that comes to fruition, that I can celebrate, whether together with a crew or by myself in my studio.

In the old days, well in those days that I spent most of my life ALONE working in my studio, I believed that I was only capable of that "feeling" when I was searching, deeply alone in my process...through time, I have come to realize that working with others is just as meaningful creatively. An A-ha moment, success! to have shed my preconceived idea of creation, to trust my process enough to actually share it with others as something of value (another successful moment) and to realize that most importantly, expression is the key to this success. I have opened the doors of my studio (a sacred space to me) and shared the PROCESS, not just the outcome...that is success to me!

Hopefully I am clear in trying to describe this "feeling", a very successful feeling.

pax.lori

And Michel Bilakowsi writes:

In a world driven by cash accumulation, one might conclude that success could only be measured with currencies or wealth appearances.

Being creative is to me chiefly being controversial and based on the fact that Today's utopias are somewhat tomorrow's reality.

So success maybe when your peers want to be you: they like your freedom, your free spirit, your will to speak up.

You, or your work, is looked at with adoration. Finding the righteous word to end a book, mixing pigments to the perfect red,...

Or, success is when you're isolated from the gregarious crowds yelling the same cry when you deeply know your move is the good one.

Waching the clock turning slowly and not being afraid of boredom to come is perhaps the very significant sign of success.

Establishing a reference is nothing else than that: succeed to beam you away from time.

(PERSIST adds: Your comments are welcome. Indeed, solicited!)

Down in "The Muck"

I made the long drive down to Fullerton late afternoon yesterday, in rush hour--surprisingly, not too bad!--ending up at "The Muck", the name they have adopted for themselves at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center. Originally the ranch house for one of those vast Orange County citrus farms, the Muck's grand exterior and surrounding expanses of green lawn belie a rather modestly-scaled interior. I was greeted there by the center's director, Zoot Velasco, who graciously offered a tour of the home as we waited for participants to arrive. In the living room, now used as the center's main gallery, I immediately recognized a beautiful Batchelder fireplace, and another in the adjacent room, with tiles representing the Chisholm Trail--tiles that were available, Zoot told me, only to those who had actually made that long trek across the West to California. The Muckenthaler family, it seems, were among them, and made their fortune off the bounty of the citrus-rich Orange County. Alas, those vast acres that once produced rich crops have now been replaced by vast acres of tracts homes and shopping malls!

In the dining room, my eye was attracted by two small pictures--one a poster, one a print--in the corner of the room, both of which seemed curiously out of place. They were both hard-edge abstractions, very bright in color, beautifully balanced, very nicely done. The poster informed me they were by one Florence Arnold, a name I had never before heard. Turns out, she was a bit of an institution in Fullerton, where she lived and worked. I wish I could show you an image, but I have not been able to find one online. She was considered good enough, in her day, to have been included in the second of the famous California hard edge shows curated by LA Times critic Jules Langser along with such luminaries as Larry Bell, Karl Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley, Helen Lundeberg and John McLaughlin--a distinguished group indeed.

Seeing this picture gave me a nice edge to work with at the beginning of my talk. It was a small turnout--small enough that I suggested changing our seating configuration from formal lecture rows into a more intimate circle, which made for comfortable sense of community among the participants. I was introduced by Rick Stein, Executive Director of Arts OC, who had been instrumental in arranging the event, and who, in turn, had been introduced by Zoot, with a few words about The Muck's programs and goals. As I sometimes do, I started out by reading a new essay, "Branding"--one not included in "Persist"--in which I refer to the recently "discovered" hard edge painter in New York, Carmen Herrara, finally recognized by the art market and the museums at the age of 94! (If you've never heard of her, read this report in the New York Times.)

The point, of course, is that the art world is fickle and elitist in its judgments about who is worthy of its attention. Artists like Carmen Herrera and Florence Arnold are regularly sidelined by the seemingly irresistible flow of the mainstream, but this unfortunate reality in no way diminishes their art. Which is why we must all find reasons--and courage--to "persist" that do not depend on the world out there for validation.

I'm happy to report that my talk went well, and that the circle proved a nice forum for discussion. Even though the core stories of my talks remain the same, every presentation is different, every audience brings a new challenge and a new reward.

(For the record, next week, I'm at the Casa Romantica in San Clemente: Thursday, May 6, 7PM, Casa Romantica, 415 Avenida Granada, San Clemente, 92672, Tel: 949 498-2139.)