NY Times Maurice Sendak Article
The part that kills me most (kills me hardest? kills me bloodiest? kills me most thoroughly dead?) in the Times article is this:
Maurice Sendak “fears he has not risen above the ‘mere illustrator’ label himself.”
On the one hand, I get it. He thinks that a requirement for being a great artist is having a powerful and eternal inner critic. If you’re not pushing yourself against something, then you won’t get past what feels comfortable, which means you’ll just create from the automatic, default part of you. Which isn’t art, it’s armchair.
On the other hand, does he have to brutalize himself so badly? The article makes it seem like he’s never enjoyed any success he’s had, even the quiet, personal success of doing something different than he did before.
Here’s what I bet his Heavyweight is telling him: “Sure, you wrote one book that changed millions of lives. So? You’ll never do it again, so what exactly are you living for?”
Mr. Sendak, a smackdown: Every time you put on a new monster suit and draw a new picture or write a new story, the Inner Critic LOSES. You may have to grapple with the Inner Critic on the regular, like digging out an ingrown toenail. But compare five minutes of bloody pain every now and then to a whole lifetime of dancing! It’s worth it and you know it, or you would have given up and just lived off your profits a long time ago….
(Now, maybe the reporter with the ingrown toenail fetish needs a smackdown, too!)
