Michael Gravel Edmonton Writer

Journal

Mar
21
2007

Art and Obsession

I'm firm in my belief that all artists are obsessive. How else can anything worthwhile get done? Think you can build a novel without getting into the dank depths of the thing, that point-of-no-return where it drives you mad and takes over your life? I don't think so. The only way things really happen, and the only way that projects truly take off, is if the whole ball of wax invades your every waking and sleeping thought. You've got to crack your knuckles and sink your fists into it. You'll be talking to your wife or out with your friends and having a good time. From the outside you'll appear to be in the moment but really you'll be thinking about the next chapter. Or that last tweak. Or the 0.5em line height adjustment to the footer of your website. You'll be working at your office but you can't get a damn thing done because this giant ink-stoking squid of a project or idea has bored itself into your mind and you can't let it go. Your regular life - work, dishes, laundry, yard work, friends, family shit - will become one big resentment; a collection of seemingly inconsequential and indistinguishable tangents that prevent you from doing your true work.

Not that I'd know anything about all that shit. Not at all. What say you? A tad obsessive?

4 Comments (Closed)

1

cOREy

EVERY artist should be obsessive about their work…it is mandatory to creating great work…if you can’t obsess about it then you should QUIT.

2

ink slinger

God dammit, we’re all fucking nuts. But, sometimes (most times?), it’s the madness that makes the art worthwhile.

3

Mike Gravel

Yeah, I think we’re all a little cracked. Who isn’t, really? If it weren’t for madness, this whole game would be boring.

4

Rosemary

I’d say nuts and paranoid at times makes an artist who they are.

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