The Story Behind the Crazy Artist Series
The Crazy Artist: A Social Experiment (on Social Media)
See the artist go mad with inspiration!!
A couple years ago I felt inspired to make a series of videos which poke fun at the creative process. As an artist, I totally get it, the creative process can make a person CRAZY. Or maybe you have to be a little crazy already to want to make art in the first place. All I know is, within the artist’s studio and their process, there’s a lot to make fun of!
Artists often have similar stories about the silly things they do, like drinking their paint water or putting their brush in their coffee instead of the paint water jar. Or, what about working to the point of exhaustion like a maniac, only to burn out and feel terrible the next day…but then our friend obsession swoops in and we soldier on.
Shots from day 1: The unconventional approach.
When I posted the first video to TikTok it was received lightly at first, but then towards the end of the week something happened and it gained traction and started to blow up. It was a trip, my phone was on fire with notices. The video had gone viral! But then I started to notice that all of the comments were in Russian. Hummm, very interesting.
What’s really interesting however, is what people were commenting on. I had used Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit as the backing track and a lot of people were voicing their approval of that. Secondly, a war was breaking out over whether or not my painting was any good. Some people thought it should be in a museum, others pointed out that their kid could paint better. My work was crap, or it was a masterpiece, not a lot of in-between. No one understood that my painting was just getting started (only about three hours of work) and was still firmly in the ugly phase at the end of that first video.
For the next week or so the comments poured in. What was most shocking is literally no one commented on the humor in the video. It made me wonder if they understood that I was making a big joke and it was meant to be fun, I mean look at the ridiculous way I attack the canvas; I would never actually paint with a screw driver, that’s just silly, right? If you thought I was being serious, the video must seem extremely pompous and downright weird.
Shots from day 2: Man, I just love Golden acrylic paints!
I posted the second video but the attention was gone and it didn’t behave very well at all. Few people probably saw the painting through to the end, which to me is the funnest part; to see a painting evolve and grow from blank canvas through to the end without planning can be inspiring to watch.
In the end my attempt to humor people seemed to have turned into a social experiment. I’m pretty confident at this point of my abilities as an artist so to be able to stand back and laugh as people argued about the worth of my painting and (what art is in general) was not only profoundly interesting, it was the funniest part of the project. And it sparked the title of the painting: “The Eye of the Beholder”.
Shots from day 3: The details!
Below are links to the instagram versions, which preserve the original copyrighted songs I chose as backing tracks.
Also, I’d like to call attention to the fact that these three videos all have a continuative narrative.
In the first one, inspiration strikes hard and I go mad from that force of inspiration!
WATCH PART ONE
In part two, I calm down a little bit (after taking some “meds”) and I’m almost sedated as I continue to paint.
WATCH PART TWO
The series concludes as I confidently dance my way through to completion of the painting.
WATCH PART THREE
Hope you enjoyed watching this series and reading more about it. Feel free to comment below with feedback. Is it art, or no?
Below is the final result of the videos. It is available for purchase here.
“the Eye of the Beholder” 30x40'“ acrylic on canvas