How do you deal with success?
I think from the outsider’s perspective having success and being well-known is all positive, right? But it actually brings a lot of negativity. There’re a lot of people who want to see you fail. People who, just because you’re in that position and they’re not, kind of want to come against you.
I noticed a backlash — the more success I get or the more I achieve, the more there’re people who are unhappy about that. You also spend a lot of time alone and it becomes more and more difficult to have people who can relate to you and what you’re trying to do.
The ascent is tough. It’s really, really hard. Not only from a work perspective — you’re constantly judging your own stuff — but now people are also looking at your work, so you can’t really experiment in a public stage as much as you used to because there’s an expectation of quality or subject or whatever it is.
So it becomes far more difficult. It’s great, obviously, that I can make a living at it, people know who I am, it’s all fine and good. But from an art perspective I think it’s much more challenging than it is beneficial.
From a personal standpoint it’s been more positive for me. I think dealing with the negativity has helped me develop these muscles mentally. Just growing as a person and as a human, which is kind of unique. I’m able to look at things differently or understand people’s motives and where they’re coming from.
It took five years to get to that point. But I’m definitely grateful – it’s a huge thing to be able to overcome, the detachment of being so personal with what you create to being, like, It’s lived its life, it’s temporary, it’s okay.