Rasslers, Ponies and Artists Oh My!

I saw The Wrestler a cou­ple of weeks ago and have been haunted by the images of Mickey Rourke as Randy “The Ram” Robin­son the bro­ken down wrestler try­ing for a come­back. While the gritty nature of the movie was dif­fi­cult to watch at times I couldn’t help but see sim­i­lar­i­ties between “The Ram” and the dif­fi­cul­ties we as artists are fac­ing today…or at least we think we are. There are three major take-aways that Randy “The Ram” left me with…

Giv­ing up vs. stick­ing with it

On the sur­face this seems obvious…we never give up, we are taught to always stick with it no mat­ter what. It doesn’t take long watch­ing “The Ram” before we ask “How’s that workin’ for ya?” A cou­ple of months ago I talked about know­ing when to give up, when to walk away, and how to rec­og­nize when it is time. Seth Godin talks about know­ing when to walk away in The Dip: A Lit­tle Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) by point­ing out that life and busi­ness are a series of ups and downs some are short and some are long, we need to know the dif­fer­ence to be suc­cess­ful. Hang­ing in there  to long can turn us into our own ver­sion of “The Ram” while giv­ing in to the impulse to give up when things get hard can lead to missed oppor­tu­ni­ties. Some­times “stay­ing the course” is good some­times not so much…we need to be awake to know the difference.

“The Ram” chose to stick with it because of any num­ber of rea­sons not the least of which was not know­ing any­thing else…he made the mis­take of think­ing his body and his glory days could last for ever. How many of us felt the same way when we decided to become artists? Did you ever imag­ine your body would give out and you could no longer throw pots or “break iron”? In the end Randy “The Ram” was left ( he thought) with no choice which brings me to the sec­ond take-away.

The one trick pony

As the movie came to an end Bruce Spring­steen asked

Have you ever seen a one trick pony in the field so happy and free
If you’ve ever seen a one trick pony then you’ve seen me
Have you ever seen a one legged dog makin’ his way down the street
If you’ve ever seen a one legged dog then you’ve seen me

Bruce Spring­steen “The Wrestler“

So I ask …how many artists are one trick ponies? How many of you rely solely on art fair sales or gallery sales to sup­port your art mak­ing? For years we could get away with it, because our bod­ies let us and we were buoyed up by a sense abun­dance. We stayed in our stu­dios, quite con­tent to remain where we were and smugly told our­selves we were doing just fine we were above the need to sell our work. Until we noticed we were becom­ing the “one legged dog” and then.….…..

A recent sur­vey by the NAIA reflected this tun­nel vision  quot­ing artists blam­ing the pub­lic when the real prob­lem was their own fail­ure to rec­og­nize them­selves as busi­nesses and busi­nesses some­times need to diver­sify in order to grow and suc­ceed. Many of the artists inter­viewed voiced a con­cern that they would have to get a “real job”, that may be true for some but not for all espe­cially for those who have paid atten­tion and did not become one trick ponies locked into their false sense of permanence.

Noth­ing is per­ma­nent, we always have a choice

This brings me to the final take-away, and that is we have a nat­ural ten­dency to think that our world will always remain in it’s cur­rent state. We will always be able to throw pots, heft iron, or work a loom, peo­ple will always  flock to us ready to buy. So we don’t see a need to antic­i­pate change because every­thing is great..that is until the trek from the van to our booth site starts hurt­ing, or we have failed to catch a trend change.

So when you start to think about  giv­ing up take a look out­side your world and inside your­self and try to see if your lens is focused, and ask yourself…

• Are you Randy “The Ram” hang­ing on because you don’t know any­thing else?
• Are you that one trick pony?
• Is the world as you see it now going to be the same way next year, or 5,10 years down the line?

These things that have com­forted me I drive away (any­thing more)
This place that is my home I can­not stay (any­thing more)
My only faith is in the bro­ken bones and bruises I dis­play
Have you ever seen a one legged man tryin’ to dance his way free
If you’ve ever seen a one legged man then you’ve seen me

Cover via Amazon

Lyrics from “The Wrestler” fea­tured in  Work­ing on a Dream (Deluxe Ver­sion) Bruce Springsteen