Tag / artist

by Nathan Coumbe

Copy the masters

If you want to improve your drumming, copy musical phrases from masters like Elvin Jones or Tony Williams.

If you want to learn a new style of art, copy the sketches and brush strokes of da Vinci and Van Gogh.

If you want to  become a world-class copywriter, copy the best, most successful ads from people like David Ogilvy or Claude Hopkins.

From medieval apprenticeship practices to their modern-day equivalents in universities and 1-on-1 mentorships, the best creatives know you must first start by copying the masters. 

You learn the fundamentals of most everything first by imitation. Only then can you add your own touch to create something wholly your own.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Judgement is the enemy of creativity

We kill most of our great, wonderful, creative ideas before they’re ever born.

We write them off, dismiss them out of hand, smother them…

But we can’t know if our ideas are good—if they’ll work or cause the change we seek to make in the world—until we publish them.

Only by letting our ideas engage with the market, the world, or our audience can we know if it’s good.

If you judge every idea before you try it out, you’ll never be creative.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Are You a Professional Artist?

You have a problem with perfection.

You don’t have writer’s block or artist’s block; you’re worried what you create isn’t very good. 

But once you stop worrying about whether something is good or bad, you can get to the business of creating. 

Professionals

To be a professional is to show up and do your work regardless of how you feel. To be a professional artist, then, is to create works of art every day no matter what.

If you’re trying to make a living doing something artistic or creative, you’re a professional. Or at least, you should act like one. 

Even if you don’t feel that you have any good ideas. Even if you’re “just an artist.”

An amateur artist only creates when he feels like it, or when the muse speaks to him. Or, God forbid, after getting inebriated so he can “loosen up” and go with the flow. 

If You Build It, They Will Come…

Remember Field of Dreams? Being an artist is a lot like Kevin Costner building that baseball field.

You don’t wait for the muse to show up before you start creating. If you start creating, the Muse shows up like a curious child. She asks “Ooooo! What’s that? Can I help? Can I do that with you?” 

Waiting for a child to do something you want her to do doesn’t work. But if you just start doing it, she’ll immediately perk up and join you because she wants to be a part of your world. The mythical “Muse” acts the same way.

Some days you might have incredible days full of flow and creative ideas, but I’ve found those to be few and far between. Creation comes before inspiration almost every day. It’s why I show up to my morning pages each day after I wake. 

I don’t write them because I feel inspired: I write them to BECOME inspired. That’s what a professional artist does–indeed, that’s what any professional does.

Act Like a Professional

A lawyer doesn’t wait to become inspired before writing a brief or rehearsing an opening statement. She’s a professional and shows up because that’s her job. 

A surgeon doesn’t wait for the muse to speak to her before operating on a patient. She trains for years so each and every time a patient is wheeled into the operating room, she’s ready to perform. 

What if you approached your art the same way? As your job. What if you showed up every day ready to create whether or not you’re in the mood?

Do the work. Go make the Muse curious today.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Artist-of-All-Arts

I don’t think I’ve ever met a single artist who was not a jack-of-all-trades in the arts and humanities–an “artist-of-all-arts” if you will.

It seems every artist is not only attracted to multiple forms of art but develops skill in multiple areas as well.

My late friend Michael McNally was a brilliant cellist and a gifted, passionate actor. My friend Lindsey is a skilled artist, photographer, designer, and also a singer with a beautiful voice. (You can see some of her work here and here.) Another friend of mine, Alden, is one of the best photographers I know as well as a talented artist and connoisseur of music.

It seems to me that anyone attracted to the arts and humanities is attracted to all of them. It’s as if once the right brain is fully engaged, it looks for beauty everywhere. 

Such is the life of an artist, and why, I suppose we can seem to others to be so scattered in our work and interests–and perhaps feel that way about ourselves. 

An artist is a lover of beauty no matter its form, so we chase it everywhere.

What about you? What forms of art are you attracted to or skilled in? Let me know in comments below!

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by Nathan Coumbe

An Artist’s Prayer

O God, the Great Creator,

You created me in your image,

Therefore I am to be creative like you.

I know now that I am simply a vessel

For your creative energy.

Help me each day to serve you,

To let this creative force flow

Through me,

So I can make the world

A better and more beautiful place,

For myself and all who inhabit it with me.

Lead me and let me,

Serve as a light,

A beacon to others who wish

To be creative themselves.

Let my artistry shine through

in all work in which I have a hand.

O God, the Great Creator, 

I promise to take care of the quantity.

I trust you to take care of the quality.

I know now that I am loved,

That I was created to live

A prosperous and creative life.

For the gifts of love, life, and creativity,

I thank you.

by Nathan Coumbe

The instrument is a means to an end

Instrument – noun 

  1. A tool or instrument; 
  2. a thing used in pursuing an aim; 
  3. an object or device used to produce musical sounds.

The purpose of an instrument is to accomplish a goal. Play a song; perform surgery; type a book; draw a sketch.

Why, then, do we spend so much time focused on learning the tool, the means to the end, rather than pursuing the end itself?

How ridiculous would it be for a surgeon to spend four years of her education learning how to use a scalpel? His end goal is to perform surgery, and the scalpel is simply a tool to help her achieve that goal. So she focuses on what he is trying to accomplish, rather than on the scalpel, and learns to use the scalpel to achieve the goal – helping the patient lying in front of her.

A drum set, trumpet, guitar, or violin is a tool used to create music. And yet, in conversations I’ve had with other musicians and from my own personal experience, an inordinate amount of time in the education of a musician is spent on technical exercises or non-musical experiences. 

I am not diminishing the importance of mastering every facet of one’s tool – a surgeon must be a master with a scalpel; a musician must be in total control of her instrument. But to focus on technique, on the instrument only, while ignoring the purpose for which it was created, is to learn only half of a craft. 

How different would an artist’s life be if every exercise or technical study was drawn from a major work in her field? What if, in learning a song, one created one’s own technical exercises that enabled mastery of the music being played, rather than technique for technique’s sake? 

Learn medicine, not scalpel technique.

Learn to create art, not how to use a pencil.

Lean to play music, not an instrument.

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