Doing Things Different From Everyone Else

I was listening to an interview with Phillip Glass the other day. He's a crazy amazing composer, I was fascinated with him years ago when I was in college.

He got me thinking about being an artist.

Phillip Glass essentially became a composer when he discovered, you have to know the rules intimately, to break them. He was talking about music, he had been studying for years, when he had an ah ha moment. Why do you know it's Beethoven compared to Mozart in a few bars. It got me really thinking. AC/DC has a sound, you know right away, the Beatles, Rolling Stones etc etc etc. Yet, they all follow the rules of music. This starts applying to all art forms. Dance has rules, the dancer that stands out, follows the rules but makes them their own. A painter, uses paints and brushes, a canvas but you can tell a Picasso from a Rembrandt in a fraction of a second.

Kid's know my personality from far away, they know me as distinct 20 seconds after I leave my car.

This was a really interesting topic for me when I heard the interview. How do you become an artist? How do you stand out?

Artists spend years learning the rules. You have to learn the rules so you can break them. Breaking the rules, you still work within the rules, you've simply bent them pushed them to the near breaking point.

So many people focus on the skills. Making a good balloon animal is really important. The fun comes when you can do the balloon animal in your sleep and you find routines with that balloon. When the balloon animal attacks you, when the balloon snaps you in the nose, when you accidentally step on it and you cry. The balloon is just a balloon, the rest is clowning.

Go back to the most basic, take a look. How do you walk in character? That walk tells everything. How do you stand when posing for a picture? There are very simple rules to walking and standing, now bend the rules. Walk with your feet pointed out, bounce when you walk, stand at an angle, stand with your arms behind your head like you're in bed.

This is what I mean by rules. This is how you create a very unique clown character.