EL MANIFIESTO REVOLUCIONARIO DE WICASTA LOVELACE DE LA MANCHA
I intend to ...

Create my own artwork.

I've always been amazed at how little influence musicians and writers have over how their work is portrayed and packaged. Who knows the work better than its creator? And yet you're going to allow others to determined the first impression that work makes upon your audience?

I admit that it's easy for me to say that. My talents, such as they are, first showed themselves with art. I am one of those people who “started drawing the moment he could hold a pencil”. I concede that not everyone has the artistic ability to create works of art to match their music or writing. But that certainly does not mean that you don't have some idea of how you would like your work potrayed.

In essence, I'm talking about packaging here. I alone will determined how my work is present to the public. Even if that means standing on a street corner in an Uncle Sam constume (perhaps you've seen me) and cajoling the American public to take a bit of my pizza pie.

But I'm not just talking about using my art to create packing for my music and writing. I'm talking about art for art's sake. Creating art because there is a need to do so, not simply because someone's product needs an attractive image to help with the selling process. An artist cannot be an artist if he or she exists solely to be employed on a work-for-hire basis. Then you are an illustrator. And while an illustrator certainly serves a useful purpose, it is unlikely your own artistic goals will ever be achieved while working such a job.

I intend to draw, paint and create because it is my nature to do so. Somewhere along the lines I came to believe that everything I did had to have some commercial viability for it to be worth attempting. And so I stopped exploring. I stopped drawing because I liked drawing, and spent too much time intellectualizing the process, trying to come up with that one perfect image or series upon which I might find a way to make a living.

The result of that is that I stopped creating. That artistic voice which first showed itself in my art as a child was stifled. And some part of my spirit died with it. But you can't silence that voice. It finds other ways to be heard. And if you will not bring it into the daylight, it will make itself heard in the darkest part of the night, when your sub-conscious has no protection against your dreams, and those voices and images can have their way with you.

I will again dance with the fairies. If for no other reason than to give voice and image to my other works. Caldwell will have a face. Neima will sing. And when the Asrians' mothership falls into the sun, I will capture an image of the end of the solar system.
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