artistic families

[rm]

I just auditioned for this play abotu Frank O'hHra thanks to the good graces of a friend who hooked me up with the opportunity. Lord knows if anything will come of it, but it has me all excited and frenetic, because oh my god, you _can_ write about this shit. I tend to have this (rather studied and ineffectual) aversion to making art about art and towards articulating why I want to, but this pleasant little audition in this unbelieveable apartment just sort of shook me out of it.

Which leads me to a quasi-related question:

Talk to me about the artistic families you know about/admire/find interesting/hate/are afraid of. And talk to me about what artistic family means to you -- genetic or constructed? love or friendship? Clear-cut or murky? What are the plausible geometric permutations? Enabling the product or part of it? Is it stuff like the emergence of Sofia Coppola? Bohemian cliques like the Frank O'Hara mess? Francis Bacon and his troubled relationships with his muses? Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh? Baz Luhrmann's Iona, etc.? Talk to me about how other people do it and why you care. And talk to me about how you do it if this pertains to you (and I can think of at least two instances on my friendslist that I think qualify).

My brain is al buzzy. Please feed me.

Comments

[splodgenoodles.livejournal.com]

I've had vague acquaintance with artistic families. They scare me. The ones I'm thinking of were accomplished straight parents with accomplished kids. (Mostly people from school days). They all seemed so freaking confident and their houses were really tasteful.

I've always wanted to be part of one but it just doesn't seem to be how my life has worked out.

Not sure if that's the sort of comment you were after...

[there-there.livejournal.com]

Hello there. I was looking for some new friends so did a random live-journal search and guess who came up?! So I've added you. Nice to read things from people you do not know.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

I think of Rufus Wainwright with all the training and drama a popular musical dynasty entails.

My parents ended up with "creative" kids in spite of their best efforts to live regular workaday lives. We were encouraged in all our interests but the terror about surviving as an artist went deep also. My brother is an artist living with my mother and finally making money from music; you know my deal, I'm going into debt to get training and learn how to stabilize myself in the world with my gifts.

My dad is really the creative one in the traditional sense, although my mother insists her father had a creative streak because, as a manager for the First National grocery store, he used to paint the gourds to look like Schmoo.

Also, I think the notion of the suffering artist is vastly overrated, although the reality is alive and kicking. I want a functional artistic family, chosen, dynamic (not static), multigenre.