The Problem with Fame

Journal Entry: Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Cecil Touchon and Mark Bloch meeting anonymously in China Town NYC 2013

Being famous just means you are a ghost in the back of other people’s minds.

When I first started thinking about being an artist as a primary thing to achieve for myself back in my late teens and early 20’s it was with the assumption that I would only get somewhere as an artist if I could figure out how to get famous. I think a lot of young artists at that time assumed you had to be famous to make a living. So, the people who intended to get serious about being artists tended to move up to New York City since everybody assumed that was the only place to go to become a famous artist. New York was where all of the main art magazines emanated from, where all of the ‘big artists’ lived at, where the big auction houses were, etc. New York was the center of the art universe.

The art world and the art market were still very small back in those days. There were hardly any contemporary galleries anywhere in the country at that time. This was in the mid-1970’s. The gallery world didn’t really get going until the late 80’s and the 90’s. Even like that, it was a pipe dream to think you could ‘make it’ as an artist just like thinking you could make it as a movie star or rock & roll star. Those were the role models back at that time. Now those role models have widened out a bit to include internet fame and fortune. Every young artist still thinks you must be famous.

But, from an individual artist’s perspective, this is only a very limited cliché assumption about what it takes to ‘make it’ as an artist/creative. It is actually much broader than that. While the rare circumstance will happen where a creative might become well known or become wealthy, below that veneer there is actually a thriving creative community of individuals who are working hard, living their lives, raising their kids, making their art and making enough money one way or another to sustain themselves in their activity. This is the lion’s share of the creative community. Most of them just don’t need the fanfare to go with it and are perfectly happy that way, preferring to live under the radar in their own specialized little worlds. It is the same in every field.

So, this is something that I would suggest that young artists think about. Chasing fame and fortune is not the point of following your creative drive. Fame and fortune is not a goal, it is not a benchmark, it is not determinative of having ‘made it’. Hence, it is nothing to worry about or angst over. So just get that idea out of your head, it is a red herring: a misleading distraction. You don’t need to be rich. You don’t need to be famous. You just need to keep working at your creative life day by day. That is making it. Set up a lifestyle that is achievable, sustainable. joyful, productive and engaging. If you can do that - and you can – then that is the benchmark for ‘making it’. It is all about what is within the range of your own control.

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