We recently connected with G. Pack and have shared our conversation below.
G., thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?
I’d say I’m happy as an artist, but it definitely does get exhausting. Only about 30% of being an artist actually requires the creation of artwork. The rest of my time is split between consulting, scheduling, planning, marketing, networking, and the rest of my overall human needs: eating, sleeping, etc. I have to constantly bounce between a creative mindset and a business mindset, and those two thought processes typically contradict one another. It almost feels endlessly trying to write out your ideas with both of your hands. If you let either hand become too dominant, the other will get sloppy. Developing your creative voice is important because that is what true art is, but if you don’t balance that with the logistics of becoming lucrative and finding new approaches to expand your network and leverage in the industry, you’ll go no where. I’m always super jealous of people who get to turn their minds off completely after they clock out of their “regular” jobs. It’d be nice to stop thinking about everything after a certain point of the day and just focus on what gives me sensory pleasure for the rest of the evening. But, for me I never really get to turn my mind off. I want my work to be great too badly. Relaxing for too long isn’t even comfortable. There are always multiple things that I could be giving my attention and creativity too, so any time not spent working is just prolonging the process. Luckily for me, working creatively has evolved into living creatively. So yeah, I’m happy. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I specialize in acrylic painting and occasionally I expand my ideas to streetwear and fashion design. ForGlory.co is my website where I sell my paintings and clothing.
A strong influence in my artwork comes from early Gothic, Venetian, Baroque, and Renaissance periods due to my time spent studying art history and art theory while in Verona, Italy. My focus is to combine the classical compositions and techniques from these eras with modern day figures, styles, and symbolism from contemporary Black culture.
Conversations of intimacy, spirituality, ego psychology, and the afterlife have become significant areas of interest for my work. These subjects tend to be where I find myself asking the most questions, and it is my hope that my art process will lead me and any of my viewers toward new answers.
Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
Personally, I think they’re kinda trash… I think the idea is very groundbreaking and I do feel like there are a lot of insanely talented digital artists within the NFT community, but I feel like 95% of the NFTs that I see publicized are lazy money grabs. I think the real issue comes from the big brands and hypebeast collectors who genuinely know absolutely nothing about what it takes to make an artwork visually compelling. Theyprobably couldn’t even explain the difference to you about the work they ‘like’ versus ‘don’t like’ because they’ve never paid attention to art or design until the day NFTs seemed like a profit. So now, we have a huge community of wealthy crypto holders/brand new art collectors who don’t know much about art at all. Plus the fact that NFT’s can be quite literally anything now such as a real life dinner date with a celebrity, or your very own house, I just don’t think humanity was quite ready for this level of a concept yet. The crypto market still seems very volatile and we probably could’ve used that time and energy for something a bit more constructive right now. That’s just my opinion though, I do hope NFTs mature into something more refined as a whole. Maybe that’s when I could see myself getting involved. For now, I’m chilling.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
I think the biggest concept that non creatives can never seem to wrap their head around is what the defines a successful artist. Success is defined differently by every single artist. I think a lot of non-creatives believe that how many thousands of followers you have, or how many dollars your last piece sold for is what determines how much of a success you’ve become. Others might say it’s purely about the level of artistic skill in your craft that you’ve mastered. For me personally, I feel like it’s a weird swirl of momentum containing all of those things.
To start, art and numbers simply do not correlate. For example, if one artist sold 100 paintings this year for $1,000 each and another artist sold just one painting for $100,000, mathematically they would both equal the same net worth but their level of success simply couldn’t be compared. They both have strengths and weaknesses that the other does not. If I had to explain my own success in plain text, I measure my success by my level of importance and influence to the world around me. My plan has always been to leave a lasting impact with my artwork and inspire the people that I come across along the way. The number of dollars that I make from each painting or the number of thousands of people who know my name may always be factors connected to my level of success, but neither of those factors are the forces of my success. Any artist that hasn’t quit yet, is a successful artist.
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