How To Become An Artist

How to become an artist

I took my mother to see “An American in Paris” on Broadway the other day for her birthday. It was an absolutely dazzling production. The singing, the dancing, the sets, the costumes – EVERYTHING – was just truly stunning to behold. And as I watched these talents on stage, it got me thinking about my life. I remember wanting to have a life in the arts. But then how did I not end up there?

Back in college I was a film major, photography minor. I had always dreamed of being involved in the movies and the day I knew I had made the right decision was a morning in my Comm 60 class at Hofstra University with Professor Sybil DelGaudio. The film we were screening that day was the James Dean classic “Rebel Without A Cause” and she was presenting us with two options:

1. She could show us the laserdisc version (remember laserdiscs?!) which would fit neatly and compactly onto our screen in the classroom but which would use the dreaded “pan and scan” – a trick used when a movie is too wide for a non-wide screen, which cuts off a portion of the frame (sometimes an entire actor is lost in the scene) OR
2. She could show us the actual widescreen film version run off the classroom’s projector that would spill off the screen due to its aspect ratio but would preserve the film the way it was meant to be in all of its cinemascope glory.

She gave us demos of what both would look like, with the pan-and-scan version first and then the cinemascope version second. When the wide-screen version began rolling with all of its vibrant colors and frames so long we had to physically turn our heads in order to see both characters having a conversation in a scene, there was no question which version we had to watch.

It was 9am on a Tuesday morning and I sat watching James Dean and Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo and I couldn’t fathom doing anything else but working in the movies. That was 1993.

It’s twenty-two years later and the closest I’ve gotten to being involved in the film industry is having worked for a brief time at a music video company.

I turned 40-years old about a month ago. Though I’ve not had a mid-life crisis in any way – I’m looking and feeling better, both physically and emotionally, than I ever have in my entire life – it has turned my attention ever so slightly towards the future. I’ve begun thinking more seriously about retirement funds and in which city I want to spend my golden years and what do I want to do with my life in the upcoming decade.

Which inadvertently (and unfortunately?) makes me take stock of where I currently am with my life.  And much to the chagrin of my college-self, it is nowhere near the film industry.

Sometimes I am completely okay with not having accomplished the goal of making it into the movies. And sometimes I am not okay with it. As with anything, it usually depends on which half of the glass I am looking at at the time. Glass half empty would be unfulfilled life. Glass half full would be opportunity knocks.

Nobody said that being an artist was going to be easy. But we’re always shown the “made it big” stories that we believe can happen to us. The American Idols, the Project Runways, those undiscovered talents that get found while in line at the grocery store. The story of that model from Oklahoma who stepped off the bus at Port Authority and shared a cab with an agent and got signed instantaneously and is now on the cover of Vogue, as opposed to the 60-year old cater waiter who still dreams of Broadway.

I often wish that back in college there had been a blue print laid out for how I was supposed to accomplish my goal of being a filmmaker. A guy who lived down the hall from me Freshman Year was an engineering major. His entire schedule for four years of college was completely laid out for him. He knew what courses he was supposed to take and how he was supposed to become an engineer. There was never a set course laid out for me on how to accomplish what I wanted to do. I guess there still isn’t.

My screenplay is still not finished. FAR from finished. And as much as I want to just put it away and never work on it again because I feel like it’s never going to be done and that I’m wasting my time and I’m being silly because my dream of working in film hasn’t happened yet and it’s probably never going to happen – I just can’t seem to let it go. No matter how many times I try to walk away from it, the ideas in my head keep trying to burst out. My inner artist refuses to go down without a fight.

And that’s okay with me. Because it lets me know what I’ve known all along: That there is an artist inside of me. Without question. I guess my artist just has to be okay with crunching excel documents a little longer before he has his chance to fully bloom.

Maybe when I finally finish my screenplay I can get to work on writing a manual that instructs people on how to be an artist. I already know what the first chapter would be called: BE PATIENT.

Follow my artist endeavors on Instagram: SMRECZKO