Neil Gaiman's Commencement Speech and Art Metatheory

There's a lot of bullshit in the art world. Anyone who has read Heidegger knows it. He had some really good points. He was saying some really beautiful poetic things. But I can't help look at what he writes with a sidelong look. I'm skeptical about theory.

I have a metatheory that there is a ton of good, useful art theory, and there is a lot of bullshit. There is a lot of art writing and thinking that is more akin to armchair psychology and sociology. An artist read a book by Jung and had some therapy and thus writes prolifically about the subconscious. I do that. It's OK to do that. Good, even. The subconscious is a popular subject in writing about art.

However, as artists in an academic institution we are expected to wear a bunch of different hats, interlope into worlds where people get PhD's to back up our theories. This is OK, but at the same time it doesn't make sense.

I found myself trying to use my layman's armchair knowledge of psychology, science, sociology, etc. to prop up the importance of my work and the concepts that I'm interested in working in. I found myself insecurely attempting to justify something that didn't need justification. Art isn't a science. It doesn't need to be one, nor do we need to prove to the world that it is "up there" with science and try to make it seem like the same thing, the same level of importance. It IS as important but in very different ways, and attempting to write the same way for art as we would for sociology is not going to prove anything.

My main theory of art: You are not a unique snowflake. If you like something, someone else will as well. You really are the expert on what good art is. If you can step away from yourself, you will know whether something is good or not. The thing is, when you DO step away from it, and if you are honest, you will see more flaws than anyone else. Just keep pushing until you make something that you are really really happy with. Something that you would buy if you had the money. Something that you absolutely love. My second theory: No matter how good it is, no matter how popular, no matter how successful you are, there will be people who hate it with a vehement passion, who are offended that you even had the gall to show it to anyone, much less make money or become successful from it. That's also ok. If you still love it, it's still good.
Some theory IS technical. Film theory, for instance, covers issues like narrative structure, timing, and aesthetics. Those are crucial to understanding why something works as a film and why it doesn't. We may understand on an intuitive level that a film sucks, but we won't really know what to do about it without that foundation. Some people figure this stuff out on their own, and make fantastic creative work without ever cracking a book. They learn by looking, by paying attention, by trying things and by really analyzing what it is in their own work that is working and not working.

Below is a commencement speech by Neil Gaiman for the class of 2012 at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. This is foundational art theory. The core of how and why to create in the first place.

In the future, as this term progresses, I'm going to revisit some things that I've read, watched and listened to that have to do with creative theory. To name a few:

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
The Poetry of Self Compassion by David Whyte
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

I'll be looking for quotes by creatives themselves, writing on creating, theory by those who know because they did the art and they were successful at it.

There is a philosophy is bandied about by many different creatives. Recently one of my favorite musicians Damien Jurado said it in his way. It is, to paraphrase, that we are merely vessels and that the creative work we do is just something we tap into as artists. Not only are we not the work, but we aren't even the creators of the work, merely the conduits for the Universe to speak. This is a completely "woo woo" concept, and has no place in an academic setting. Yet, I completely agree with it. Well, sometimes anyway.

Yes, I did just imply that artist's can hear the voice of god, and I'm not taking it back. Is this absurd? Yes, possibly. Is it any more absurd than the philosophy of Martin Heidegger? I don't think so. There's a perfectly good secular way of describing this that has to do with the subconscious mind processing information better than our analytical thinking mind.