If you want to get to know me....some words of advice....Actually I just thought this was funny in a truthful kinda way and reposted it....
How to Get Along With The Artist In Your Life
1. Don't Ask for Comps
Yes, this is a tough one to remember, but consider that while you may have had a tough day at the office, your artist friend was rationing his or her F'ING RAMEN NOODLES WITH HIS PET COCKROACH. So don't ask him or her for a free DVD, CD, painting, drawing, book. No, not even a free ticket to see him or her at the local dinner theater. Not even in jest. Seriously, you could get hurt.
Unless you yourself are poor, willing to promote your friend in the media, or will do HIS OR HER PLUMBING FOR FREE IN RETURN, it's always a safe bet that your artist friend will hate your guts for even asking. And really, you should rot in hell for being so gauche, don't you think? Mrs. Manners frowns on this sort of thing.
2. Buy Their Art Product
If you haven't done this yet, it's a sure bet your artist friend already hates your guts, you goddamn philistine. Just slink away, you slime. Die. After you buy of course.
3. Knowing Does Not Disqualify
Just because you, a regular Joe or Jane, happen to know the artist, it does not necessarily mean that your artist friend is not a GREAT artist. While you may assume that since your daily life is filled with the mediocre, and perhaps even you yourself indulge in it in your own job, this does not necessarily apply to the artist in your life. Your artist friend may be working 16 hours a day to get something "just right," even if YOU calmly shrug your shoulders at the thought that you may have killed someone with a math error in your latest compact car design.
4. Do Not Patronize
(Related to 3) Yes, you may have known your artist friend since he or she was "this high," but that just means you are an old fart unwilling to recognize genius in your youngers. Put the cheek-pinching fingers away and don't even think about "talking down" to your artist friend. If your artist friend is in the narrative arts (film, writing) this is a sure-fire way to get yourself caricatured in their next work, and go down as a laughingstock for all eternity.
5. Your Sage Advice May Not Apply
(Related to 4) Yes, you are a captain of industry. Or a whiz at child rearing. A political superstar. Popular and beloved by everyone in Smallville. A guru that everyone quotes on Twitter. You have life experience and wisdom, but when it comes to your artist friend's art, consider the possiblity that you have no idea what it means to face the infinite minute by minute so please, dear reader, STFU.
6. Invest Till You Drop
Do you really want your only mention in the history books to be a tiny italicized footnote as the jackass who wouldn't invest in Wagner's operas? Orson Welles's last film? Van Gogh's brushes and canvas? Really? REALLY?
7. No Jobs Please
If the artist in your life is really serious about his or her work, consider Option 6 and keep to yourself any offers of sales, accounting, typing, contracting, driving, or other non-art-related jobs. If you offer and he or she accepts, then he or she is not a real artist; but if they don't, then know this: for that brief shining moment that you offered your amazing job opportunity, your artist friend imagined you deep in hell, your flesh dripping off your bones in horrible agony - because if you could offer a job, then obviously you could afford Option 6, you rotten stupid bastard.
8. Commit to the Art or Get the Hell Out Now
Don't tell the artist in your life that you like him or her, but don't care for their art. Yes, it may seem perfectly acceptable to say such a thing to a civil engineer as "Gee Joe, I love ya to death but that stop sign just don't work right on Highway 33." But if you say "I love hanging out / twittering / facebooking with you but I just don't like horror films / heavy metal music / abstract art" then you are an absolute monster and, if there were any justice in the world, you would be put to death in a most horrible way.
You should care more about your friend's art than you care about your friend. Why? Because your friend does.
9. You Don't Understand Their Industry's Networking
So you happen to have a cousin who runs a gallery / works as an assistant director in L.A. / edits cookbooks / sings in a choir. By all means mention these contacts to your artist friend. But please, only once. Don't beat them up every time you see him or her with your amazing cousin who will open the heavens. Your artist friend will know whether your "contact" is worthy of pursuit, or is a big fat waste of time.
10. Don't Whine About Your Booboo In The Middle Of Their Battle
Off the top of my head, the only people who can bitch about how tough their day was to your struggling artist friend are soldiers in battle, slaves at the whip, the terminally ill, the homeless, and those mourning the loss of a loved one. If you don't fall into those categories, STFU.
11. Extra Special Bonus Tip: Patience With the Zone
Don't be upset with your artist friend if he or she can't make it to your soiree, cocktail party, or coffee shop. Don't be disgruntled if they fail to call back, return your email, or answer the door. When they get into the zone they can't (and shouldn't) stop. And if you are married to / living with / dating the artist, get used to long stretches of time when you are not the center of your significant artist's life. Seriously, don't be the spouse that tells Mozart all he does is write music and never spends any time with you.
So there you are, dear readers; they are complex and difficult, but please help me distribute these tips far and wide! I have a sneaky suspicion that should the average jane and joe know these tips by heart, we will have many, many more Mozarts and Van Goghs in all of our lives.
And more importantly - we will have more of their works of art. By Film Ladd
The last few paragraphs of A Tale of Two Cities. Sorry to ruin it for those who have not read it and plan to but those people are few and far between anyway. Sydney Carton approaches the Guillotine.....
Chapter XV The Footsteps Die Out For Ever
...........They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.
One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe--a woman-had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given any utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these:
"I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.
"I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.
"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both.
"I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, fore-most of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place-- then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement --and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice.
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."