Friday, February 11, 2005

Elvis Costello and Thoughts on What Makes a True Artist

This is an interesting piece on Elvis Costello. He's working on an opera and is quoted:
"Of course the minute opera is mentioned it's like a big, fat woman with a Viking helmet. Everyone sees that image and thinks that it has to sound like Puccini.

"What I am actually doing is telling a story about Andersen. I didn't want to set one of the tales because that has been done.

"I'm right in the process of writing it - it's about Andersen who was this weird misfit kind of guy who came from a very poor background and rose to prominence because he basically invented children's stories. Andersen was a very conflicted person in his own sexuality. He kept falling in love with the wrong people.

"But it is not going to be written for an orchestra and I'm singing two of the roles in the initial production so it won't be like formal opera."
A chief characteristic of a true artist, I've always felt, is that they're willing to branch out, to take chances, and to risk failure. Artists take adventures they wouldn't otherwise have to take.

Pablo Picasso did that. Some hated the work of his later life. But he had the guts to keep experimenting.

Costello's sometime-collaborator Paul McCartney has done the same with his symphonic poem, oratorio, occasional chamber pieces, alternative music, poetry, and painting.

So have Elton John, Billy Joel, and others. Even Jimmy Carter, between peacekeeping gigs manages to write poetry, fiction, and social commentary.

Of course, one can argue that it's easier for people like these. Having achieved success in one field, they're given opportunities we might not have. Their past successes act as safety nets should they fall on their faces.

That's true, of course.

But one might just as well say of Costello, McCartney, John, Joel, Carter, and others that these opportunities come their ways because they were risk-takers in the first place. They were willing to take to life's stages and earn their spurs, so to speak, in one field, thereby opening up other possibilities. Indeed, many people refuse to take risks by branching out as artists--and as people--for fear that past glories will become tarnished by new failures.

But instead of just wallowing in a single success, true artists have always boldly gone onto other stages. On each one, of course, they've faced detractors and critics, sometimes justly.

They prove however, that the most breathtaking achievements are attained by the adventurers, by those who understand they could fail but strive just the same.

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