Is your work extraordinary? If yes, please stop reading this and go make more work. If no, why not?

Don’t you want your photography, your movies, your crochet toilet seat covers to be extraordinary? If you don’t, you might as well stop reading this, too.

I have a beef with people who create art with no desire of doing anything extraordinary. I’m not saying every piece of work has to be extraordinary, not the most extraordinary of extraordinaries can pull that off. I’m saying, if you don’t aspire, then you are just contributing to the sludge that bogs down the machine. Don’t be the sludge.

The flip side of desire is intention. You can want all you want, but don’t intend it, you’re chances of making something extraordinary are zero’s next-door neighbor. Accidentally extraordinary work isn’t really extraordinary. It happens every day. I know I just said the chances of that happening are next to zero. Well, when you’ve got a planet full of people not trying to do anything extraordinary it only takes a sliver of a percentage of that number to make accidental extraordinary things happen everyday. And there’s a beauty to that. I think it’s nature trying to give us a jump start. Do not shun nature! Take that spark and start your furnace. Huh? Yeah. What? Let’s continue.

So, how does one create something extraordinary? You can start by thinking about it. Yeah, you’re probably going to have to dust off that old brain of yours. Think about what you want to say. I’ve said it before and will say it again. Have something to say.

Having something specific to say immediately rockets your work out from the masses since most don’t. But don’t stop there. Have something to say and then say it with as much passion and intensity as you can muster. Instead of saying, “look how cute my cat is,” tell the world of your undying devotion to your feline Josephine.

Okay. Now you’ve decided what you want to say, and you’ve figured out how to say it in a way that is writhing with emotion and passion (it is a lot of work to get it to this level – a lot). Congratulations. Don’t stop there. Think about it some more. Did you know on average, when coming up with ideas, the vast majority of the population use one of the first three things that come to mind? You want to be extraordinary still, right? So keep thinking. Write down 20 or 50 or 100 ways to illustrate what you want to say. You still may pick one of the first few, but you’ll have a far more textured approach and significantly better chance of it being extraordinary. Besides, maybe it was idea 92 that was the extraordinary one. Wouldn’t it be sad if you stopped at 91?

Now it’s time for an execution. Any guesses why the phrase “execute an idea” came to be? Yeah, you’re going to have to kill it. That idea you worked so hard on, it can’t live outside your head, not in the same form. Accept it. Now, if you try really, really hard (most people don’t), and you capture what made the idea extraordinary to start with, you just may have a piece that is extraordinary, too.

Does your work emotionally do what you’re idea emotionally did? If you’re answer is yes you are either mistaken or extremely fortunate. If it doesn’t, or if you think it does and you’re mistaken, do it again. Yes, again. And again and again and again. It’s all part of the process.

Just about everyone has quit by now. You should quit, too. You know, unless you want to make something extraordinary. Oh, you still do? Read on because you still aren’t finished.

There is one last obstacle, and for some it’s is the most difficult. You have to take a chance. Be vulnerable. Rip off all of your project’s clothes and run it naked out onto a crowded street corner. Let people throw stones and kisses. It doesn’t matter which one. That’s right, some will hate it, and maybe some will even love it. Am I saying it doesn’t or shouldn’t effect you if people don’t like it?

Hell no!

If a million people tell you you’re a genius, yet one person, even a total stranger, thinks it’s crap, and you aren’t sent into a crippling depression, then you didn’t really put all of you into that work and it doesn’t deserve to be extraordinary. Congratulations, either way you are a failure. What?

Yes, the reward for flaying your body open and exposing your soul to the world, for trying to stir the emotions of your fellow Man, the reward, if you do it right, is suffering. If you do it right, you suffer at every stage, from concept to completion to exhibition.

So why bother? Most don’t. But if you manage to do something extraordinary, really and truly extraordinary even just once, I think you’ll find it’s worth it.

Nice!

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