Artistic Modesty

Hello Everyone,

This week, I turned in an assignment for my Illustration Markets class which I loved doing. A year or so ago, our professor created all the illustrations for an issue of a magazine called In Character. Each issue highlighted a different virtue, everything from thrift to loyalty to forgiveness. We were instructed to choose a volume that we resonated with, re-illustrate the cover and do two inside “spot” illustrations. I chose modesty because I have been thinking about it a lot in the last few years, especially since coming to SCAD.

Modesty (and its younger sister, humility) is something I hear about all the time in a religious context, but rarely in an artistic one. And when I do, it’s always negative. “You have to have an ego,” our professors tell us. “You have to be able to sell yourselves or you won’t make it as professional artists.” Modesty, in other words, is fine for people who have a “normal” profession with job security and health benefits. Us artists? We can’t afford it.

Every fiber of my being refuses to believe this. I think it’s not only unnecessary but actually detrimental to separate my religious beliefs from my artistic ones; surely it is possible to be humble and creative at the same time. So when I got a chance to do an entire project dedicated to the concept of modesty, I leapt at it. And when I saw that this issue included an article called, “Can Artists Ever Truly Be Modest?” by Eric Gibson, the editor of the Leisure and Arts page of the Wall Street Journal, I leapt again, this time literally.

Gibson highlights several reasons why artists generally aren’t modest. For one thing, as he says, “Artists are in the business of drawing attention to themselves” and, I would add, to their work. This is partly for reasons of patronage and financial survival, but also because you have to be confident enough in your work that you think it’s worth seeing. In general, an artwork isn’t truly complete until it has been viewed by someone. (If a painting is done in the woods and no one is there to see it, is it still art?) Also, art almost always deals with the human experience. My professor said of this particular project that “it’s all about us” as people. But it could be equally said of all art anywhere; we are inspired by events, emotions, scenes, objects, actions that involve us. How narcissistic! Furthermore, making a work of art is inherently tied up with identity. We sign our work. We paint self portraits. There is a sense that when we paint a picture, part of us is represented on the page. When I look at pictures by Henri Matisse or Jackson Pollock or Eric Carle, I feel like I know their makers. This makes sense religiously too: looking at Creation is a way of knowing the Creator.

It seems like making art is destined to be wrapped up in ego and self-promotion, and this is dismaying. How do I deal with moments in the artistic process that tempt my pride: professors telling us we need to be confident and sell ourselves; people complimenting me on my work; the occasional dreams I have of winning the Caldecott? Assuming that false modesty is really just a more sneaky form of pride, how do I respond? Of course, humility is the trickiest virtue to cultivate because if you recognize any progress in yourself, it almost always turns instantly to pride at your accomplishment. One step forward, two steps back.

Fortunately Gibson concludes that, though rare, it is actually possible for artists to be modest, and that perhaps they have a modesty unique to their profession. He describes the humility artists have when they recognize the artists who have come before them, when they acknowledge that they create within a larger context. He talks about artists being daunted by the immensity of the work ahead of them. At one point, he even quotes Michelangelo saying, “I am not . . . a painter” as he was working on the Sistine Chapel. Often, artists can feel that their art is bigger or beyond themselves, that they can get lost in their work. Gibson discusses artists sacrificing themselves for their work (and though he doesn’t mention them, there are clear Biblical parallels here too).

I would add several reasons to Gibson’s observations. Artists working in any kind of a community, be it a class or a company, must continually hear and hopefully incorporate advice from others. This is particularly true in Illustration, where an art director or an editor can manage your project until the final publication. Cooperation fosters humility when it reminds us that our methods and opinions are only one possible approach.

Mostly, I think that artists can be modest when they recognize that everything they have, be it talent, training or opportunities, comes from someone or somewhere else. After honesty, I think thankfulness is the biggest contributor to humility. And very occasionally, in our best work, there is a sense of awe. Every so often, I look at a picture I’ve made and think, “Wow! That’s good! I wonder how I did that.” It sounds prideful, but I think it’s actually the point in the artistic process when artists can be most modest. I’m always pleasantly surprised when I remember I was somehow connected with making the work in front of me. And it is that surprise that reminds me that I’m not completely in control as I create. And that is terrifying, amazing and relieving. It is, in other words, humbling.

And we’re back to the infuriating thing about modesty: here I am, telling you how humble I am as I make art, the iteration of which isn’t exactly modest. But as I get caught in moral eddies, I am aware of the impending deadline -- my assignment needs to be completed, not just thought to death. And again, I find that art (like children, stories, nature, and good friends) takes me out of myself long enough for me to forget the whole debate and actually make something.

Here are the results of this assignment:

The cover: My friend Erin suggested doing a peacock precisely because they are known for their vanity. I thought it would be a striking image for a cover, and it would be fun to have the peacock with a sort of fan in front of his eyes.





For the first "spot" illustration, I wanted to show an artist locating herself in history and yet still making a distinct impression: "It is here, in relation to the past and their sense of their place in the history of art, that artists exhibit modesty in the truest sense of the term."






For the second "spot" illustration, I decided to do an image for an article about how scientists won't ever be able to know everything about the world: "From time to time, when we catch glimpses of the unknown, we feel a sense of pride and satisfaction in learning something that no human has ever known before -- but we are equally humbled by how much we don't know."

Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse

ps: If you’re interested in reading Gibson’s article, or any others from In Character, you can access the full text online at http://incharacter.org/archives/. I find this a very thought-provoking publication.