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Lessons from a Passionate Artist
by
Suzanne Falter-Barns
Last year, I ran this essay about my father, the artist John
Falter, whose birthday is next Tuesday . If he were still alive, he'd
be 95; he died twenty-three years ago. He taught me just about
everything I know about passion and art being the source of your joy …
so it seems this essay about the lessons Johno taught me should become
an annual event. Enjoy!
I am the
daughter of an artist, John Falter, who long ago was heralded for a
brief minute in American history. But more than that, he lived to
create, and he did that with huge love and joy.
So simply by
example, he taught me how one can have a highly successful, profitable,
and glorious career as a self-supporting artist. By the end of his
life, he'd painted literally thousands of paintings and illustrations,
among them 200 covers for The Saturday Evening Post. He also had a
major career as a western history painter and still life artist.
He was an incredibly funny, brilliant, larger-than-life figure who
swirled in big circles; among his friends he counted James Cagney,
Charles Addams, Peanuts creator Charles Shultz, Norman Rockwell, all
the Wyeths, John O'Hara, novelist Frank Norris, and dozens of jazz
legends.
One of the last
times I ever went out with him, we sat around the pool room at The
Players Club in New York and had drinks with Bette Davis. His was,
indeed, a glamorous world.
The secret behind all of this success was his driving passion for what
he did. A friend once asked him if he could do anything in the world –
dine at the finest restaurant, make love to a beautiful woman, race the
fastest car – what would it be? My father simply said, 'Go up to my
studio and paint.'
Here are a few of the lessons he passed on:
1. If you've got talent, don't waste it. Nothing made him madder than
wasted ability. He saw it as nothing less than his sacred mission to
pass along his paintings to the world. His parents, who ran a small
clothing store in a tiny town in Nebraska, taught him this.
When he was
sixteen, they found a relative to run their business, and moved the
entire family to Kansas City so he could attend art school on a
scholarship he'd won.
2. Artists need support. His came in many forms. He had five huge
filing cabinets filled with magazine clippings he'd saved of all sorts
of people, clothing, props, animals, etc., to use as research for his
paintings.
He also made a
point of doing copious primary research for his history paintings,
digging into small-town archives across America. And he had regular
helpers (myself, my siblings, and our mother among them) who stretched
his canvases, modeled for his paintings, organized his files, and ran
his business.
3. Hang with the guys who inspire you. Dad loved other creative people
of all kinds and regularly hung out with them. In his thirties and
forties, his friends were mostly actors, artists, and writers.
Later in his
life he was especially inspired by jazz musicians, and spent a lot of
time sitting in jazz clubs with a portable easel, sketching their
portraits, which he later sold in a portfolio of lithographs. They
simply gave juice to his work.
4. Above all else, have fun. One thing that made his work take off was
the lack of earnestness – and just plain fun – he had. He liked
capturing people just being people – the mother who discovers her child
has hidden a snowman in the deep-freeze, the family being 'entertained'
by a painful recital after Thanksgiving dinner, the kids who've just
destroyed their mother's kitchen baking a cake.
His personal
life continued the same way. An actor buddy used to take him around to
bars in New York where he'd pretend to be Toulouse-Lautrec's
illegitimate son (my father was 6'4") and sketch their portraits on the
spot.
5. It's important to have your feet on the ground at all times. If he
had a shortcoming, it was that his head was up in the creative ethers
pretty much all the time. This made for a few disasters, like the solo
exhibit he thought he'd booked in Sante Fe, NM, which turned out not to
be true … a fact he found out only after he arrived, paintings in hand.
Likewise, he
never retained the rights or most of the original works of his Post
covers … unlike his peer Norman Rockwell and others. This forged some
rocky times financially – and my own determination to become a really
good business person AND a successful artist.
6. When everything falls apart, it's time to reinvent yourself. My
father had a career crisis when the illustrated magazines on which he'd
built his career switched over to photography.
Suddenly, he was
out of work. After two years of trying to figure out what to do next,
he decided to go with his passion: history paintings that told the
story of his beloved mid-west and south-west. He went on to sell much
of this work, and truly love what he was doing.
7. You need an airtight savings account. Somehow my father had a really
loose grip on just how much money he and my mother spent. Sometimes my
private school tuition was paid by bartering paintings.
On the other
hand, sometimes the whole family got wined and dined at the '21' club
in New York. An emergency savings account would have made a major
difference in the financial stress levels at home. And yes, I have one
today.
8. You build a career one inch at a time. One day I walked into Dad's
studio and asked what he was painting. "Inches of British Soldiers," he
replied, looking over the huge Revolutionary War mural he was working
on. Then he looked at me. "That's how you do it, honey. One inch at a
time."
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Reprinted
with
permission from free ezine, The Joy Letter, Feb 24 2006 - see her site
below
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Suzanne
Falter-Barns
is author of the books:
How
Much Joy Can You Stand : A
Creative
Guide
to
Facing Your Fears and Making Your Dreams Come True
Living
Your Joy: A Practical Guide to Happiness
and
founder
of coaching resources site:
HowMuchJoy.com
- Learn Your Purpose. Live Your Joy
Also
see her programs:
Get Known Now
- Helping Your Practice, Book
or Small Business Reach Millions
Fill Your Groups
Now
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