Art by Marianne Monto

Originally published 27th of February 2024

So, today boys and girls and others, I want to talk about art friends. 

Short version: get some.

Long version: An art friend is a person, who also does art. Friends don’t need to share the same style or medium with you. There are pros in either way. Art friends core, the thing that makes them so amazing is that they understand on a completely different level those feelings that are so hard to verbalise. How you can feel that something you have created is beautiful or bordering on genius without you being presumptuous. Or the other end where everything you create is unoriginal and poor execution. They get the ups and downs, moments of glory and self doubt. And (of course depending on your relationship) you can get honest feedback. I know, I’m a bit paranoid, but I feel that family should be supportive, so I’m worried family is supporting you even if they think your expression is bad on so many levels.

How do you get art friends? My recipe has been inserting myself in situations and places with other artists. Not everyone needs to be your friend and different people need different amounts of time. But the beautiful thing is that you don’t need to be any less or make yourself appear smaller (in a spiritual sense), you can be unapologetically you. You can be really as weird as you truly are. You don’t need to try to fit into an “artist” role. As in painting, trust the process. Your vibe will bring your tribe.

So what to do when you find a person you like to hang out with? If you think that you are not going to meet again organically I feel it’s quite ok to tell the other person that you enjoy your time together and would like to stay in touch. Worst thing to happen is that other person needs bit more time and flakes. Second worst is that they either reveal to be horrible people that you would not like to associate anyway. 

Special worry: if they think I’m romantically interested in them? Well, if you have not been implying that, there is a good chance that the other one will not read more to the situation than there is. I don’t know if this is a Finnish thing, but usually it’s the other way around: you can do heavy flirting and imply that you would definitely like to be romantically involved and the other person thinks you are just being friendly.

But back to singing praise to art friends. They can get you to see your work in a different perspective or try a new style. They can give you technical tips in mediums, as you can ask how they achieved some effect. Sometimes you can get constructive criticism or suggestions on how to improve your work. They know the issue of “it’s just not working” and can try to help you to figure out how to fix the situation. And vice versa. It’s really good to do those things to others also, as you need to adjust your perspective or try to find key elements in style you don’t do. Sort of mental dancing. And I personally like to help. You want to know how I got that opaque layer? I will tell you what I mixed together, how much to use and if there is a specific brush technique. 

And of course, the most important thing. Art friends are friends. You can do other stuff also, you don’t need to separate them in your art closet (please don’t imprison anyone in your art closet, there are usually unhealthy fumes).