A painter recalls how they were cautioned in art school against painting abstractly, because they were told by a professor that it was not their strong suit.  However, the painter says they persevered, in part because of the example of Matt Lamb.

Matt responds:

I’m glad to hear you stuck to your guns!

My advice is:  Never be cautioned to do anything.  If someone cautions me not to do something, the first thing I’m going to do, is do it, and continue to do it until I eliminate it from my psyche.  Then I make a point to make sure the person knows I was doing it.

It’s part of the attitude of “I don’t give a shit; I’m an artist and I’m going to do what I want, and if you don’t like it, don’t look at it.”

Throughout your career, people will tell you what to do.  Your job is to do what you think you should do.  Possibly, at some poiunt, we have to make a yellow painting to hang above a green couch because we have to eat.  But we don’t have to make 100 of them.  If we want to make a black painting or a paisley painting, maybe people won’t buy it, but our soul will feel much better.

Beware of prescriptions of what you should do and how you should do it.  As I’ve said before, “Trying to educate the powerful is like trying to teach a pig to sing; it frustrates you and agitates the pig.”  I am the pig in that equation.  I am constantly being agitated. 

Matt