I’ve been following Austin Kleon’s work for a while now. I like how he talks about process over product in his book, Show Your Work.
The products of artists we admire and follow are all around us. The process they go through to reach such heights is often a mystery. One reason I like Kleon’s work is that he doesn’t shy away from sharing his process. In fact, sharing his process is kind of his thing.
Lately I’ve been seeing the idea of process, i.e., how artists go about their work and how they find inspiration, crop up everywhere.
In Jeff Tweedy’s book, World Within a Song, he writes about the influence The Beatles Anthology had on his music. I was 15 when the first of the anthology albums was released in 1995. One of the singles for the album was the demo, “Free as a Bird,” a “new” song by the Beatles recorded in 1977. I remember being mesmerized by the song’s video in which you experience the perspective of a bird flying through Beatles history as John Lennon croons about being free.
The Beatles Anthology featured rarities, outtakes, and live performances spanning the Beatles’ career, all providing an insight into their process. Of the anthology, Tweedy writes:
It’s truly hard to overstate how important it was to be given the validation of knowing that even the Beatles struggled, made wrong turns, changed course, and ultimately surrendered to each unsure moment as an invitation to swim in a starlit sky of possibility. I was given permission to sound bad on my way to sounding great by these records. Bad with gusto and an unabashed joyful wonder. No one looks inside and discovers only diamonds and pearls. If art is at least in part an act of discovery, you might as well learn how to enjoy getting lost, too.
My family has a saying that we use when facing difficult times: The struggle is real. Like Tweedy, it’s validating to me to know that other artists, writers, teachers, etc., struggle through their process. It gives me courage and determination to work through my process, with all its imperfections, towards something more beautiful.
