What helps a person develop into an artist? Since we’re calling this book The Artist’s Life, it makes sense to start at the very beginning – which would be the parents who raised them. Some people are lucky enough to have parents who are supportive right from the start. Other artists need to win their folks over with hard work, passion, and (at times) a taste of success. There are also those less sterling examples of parenthood, but we will save them for the end of this section. Instead, let’s focus first on the moms, dads, siblings, and grandparents who comprised a first appreciative audience.
Let’s start with National Book Award-winning novelist Susan Choi’s parents, particularly her father. “I think my parents had more faith in me than I did,” she told us.
When I was a kid, they were really supportive. They weren’t precious about it, but they were very encouraging. I always had the strong sense that they thought my writing was worthwhile and interesting and original. And that it delighted them that I did it. I think it was a little unusual because my father was a Korean immigrant. I’m always meeting other Korean Americans and other Asian Americans of my age who – though it’s very stereotypical-sounding – talk about enormous pressure from their immigrant parents to pursue careers that were obviously lucrative and prestigious. I don’t know why my father was different. My father put me under enormous pressure to take school seriously and always expected me to get a doctorate in anything, even if I didn’t end up being a full-time professor. In that, I’ve disappointed him. But at the same time, he’s a mathematician, and when he saw my early inclination toward literature, he really rolled with it. I enrolled in a doctoral program in English and I dropped out of it. The day I called my father to tell him I was dropping out, I couldn’t believe his reaction. He basically said to me, “Good for you. I’m sure you’re doing the right thing.” Sometimes now I see an academic article on my work by someone who actually did get their doctorate and I’m tickled pink.
We’re guessing her dad is, too.
Choi’s experience with immigrant parents may not have been a common story, but it was one she shared with writer Gina B. Nahai:
My parents were very supportive. It’s strange, because I was sure my parents, who paid for my education, would be very disappointed that I didn’t finish law school. But my parents were always untraditional. The reason they left Iran when they did, and sent my sister and me to boarding school, was that they always wanted their daughters to have careers and a real education. My dad said, “You know, it’s better to be a good writer than a mediocre lawyer. If you don’t want to be a lawyer, it’s better to do what you really feel like doing.”
Parents Who Were Wary of the Arts
Actor-writer Jim Piddock’s father was encouraging, despite his own less-than-positive associations with entertainers. “My father had a very normal job,” he told us.
He worked for ICI as a technical adviser. He was like a doctor for crops, going around Kent and consulting with farmers. His father, my grandfather, was a pretty irresponsible guy; he left my dad and his two siblings for a chorus girl. My grandmother couldn’t raise three boys on her own, so she gave the middle one away and that was my father. He was raised by an aunt who had a bit of money, so he went to a better school and all that, but I think he probably had a lifelong feeling of abandonment. It was only in my late teens that I discovered my family background in show business when my dad said, “That’s my half sister on television there.”
It turned out that his father, Harry Piddock, was an actor and a comedian, who had a music hall act with Charlie Chaplin before Chaplin left for America. Fortunately, my father was still supportive of me becoming an actor, even though the effects of that profession had affected his life very negatively as a child. I ended up looking up some of his extended family and finding them. I lived around the corner from one of them and they became some of my closest relatives.
Like Piddock, singer Country Joe McDonald had a father who had a hard relationship with the arts. In McDonald’s case, it was his father’s own thwarted ambitions:
My father grew up on a farm in the Depression era and at one point got a guitar and brought it home. His father was a minister and made him take it back. My father always struggled with trying to play a musical instrument. He was essentially a creative person. His approach to farming was very creative, his approach to life was creative. You know, people who do labor can be very creative – mechanics and farmers. They can be very creative in the way they approach their work. But my father could never do music. Whatever it was inside of him got damaged, and it was a frustration for his whole life. We used to buy him simpler and simpler instruments to play and he never could play any instrument, although he liked music and he was proud of me. He wrote a book, his autobiography, a very wonderful book. And he could bake bread and do leather tooling and he used to work with horses. But again, he got stifled, and I was allowed to blossom. My mother gave me music lessons and nobody ever told me, “This is crap, don’t do it.”
Parents Who Were Fully Supportive
Musician Bruce Mack’s mother and brother were both helpful influences:
My mother, who loved music, turned me on to a lot of Etta James and King Pleasure. Listening to those records really got my interest. I started reading about the artists who created those records and the producers behind them. That stirred me up. Between that and listening to radio, I was drawn into music. My brother, who could sing very well, babysat me. He also had a trumpet I didn’t hear much, but I loved the glow of it. He would sing television commercials with me. As I got older, and started to express a certain interest in music, my mother gave me an allowance so that I could go and buy the latest 45 vinyl disc. She didn’t tell me what to get, she just said, “Here’s the money for it, pick your song.” We had a small turntable, but she eventually purchased a stereo for the house that I was the manager of. I learned every button on it, learned about the needle, even how to tweak the contour on my own.
Musician Peter Litvin’s parents were also supportive:
As a kid, my thing was guitar and recording. I didn’t have money for equipment, so I would get recording gear for my birthday and Christmas presents. When I didn’t have anyone to play music with me, my mom got a drum set and started taking drum lessons. She wanted to jam with me. As the years went by, they observed that I wanted to make a career out of it and was capable of doing it professionally. My parents never once told me, “Don’t follow your dreams,” or “Go get a real job.” They always supported my music and creativity.
Phyllis Brody, a visual artist and entrepreneur who founded a successful company producing arts activities, received maternal support through the gift of time. “My mother was a very special and encouraging person,” Brody said.
She loved to experiment with cooking, sewing, and making things, and she understood that I had this passion, too. She never asked me to do chores because she wanted to support my being busy doing all these other creative things and that was more important than me learning how to do the dishes and dust. I’m sure that had a lot to do with the fact that creativity became so important to me.
“We always had music in our lives,” singer-songwriter Julie Gold told us.
There was a swing set in the backyard and I would swing and sing to the birdies and the cat. I started out playing for animals on a little plastic toy keyboard. Then my parents bought a little piano and I was always at the piano. The minute my parents thought I was good, they gave me a better piano. My parents were unconditionally supportive of the arts for both me and my brother. It was part our life like anything else – it held equal if not more importance.
Non-fiction writer Mary Roach’s father appreciated her art more than she thought was warranted:
I never played a musical instrument as a kid, but I drew – not in any kind of impressive way. But as a little kid, I was always drawing little books. I’d staple them together. My father was artistically very gifted so he would take my horrible fingerpainting smears and frame them and put them up. I have memories of some of the pieces of quote-unquote “art” because they were on the wall in our home. Some of them look like Franz Kline, pretty abstract. I didn’t write; it wasn’t something I wanted to do. I mean, I wrote because I had to, but I wasn’t a kid who wrote stories other than for school. All in all, I don’t think I was terribly creative as a kid.
Roach’s father’s encouragement may not have led her to become a visual artist, but she has seen tremendous success as a New York Times bestselling author.
Artist and animator Keith Wong lucked out; both his parents were active, hands-on champions of his early efforts:
My parents were both teachers, but my dad was pretty much an artist. He would draw me and my brother. He would build us dioramas and machines and airplanes; he would create just things for us. He would go to the junkyard and take a barrel and cut the center out and put in car seats and steering wheels and switches and dials so it looked like you were in a cockpit. He found these industrial springs that he would weld on so it would be on this little rocking thing, but it was very much like a little jet fighter with all these little switches … My mom would make us costumes and whatnot for Halloween. They wanted to show us music and places, concerts in the park, or they would just take us to see color and shapes and museums, even when we were almost too young to absorb it. But we did. My parents were very supportive of our creative endeavors and continue to be to this day.
Photographer/lighting programmer Rachael Saltzman’s mother took a situation that might have angered other parents and turned it into a lifelong opportunity for growth:
Around first grade, I’d decided that I didn’t need to go to school anymore. It was dull, I was at the top of my class and bored out of my mind. In the middle of class, I told my teacher as much, and headed for the door. She asked where I was going, and I told her, “home.” And I did. I think teachers of six-year-olds don’t usually have to deal with that sort of thing, so she wasn’t sure how to stop me. I walked home, got there around lunchtime, and told my mom what had happened. Over lunch, my mom explained to me that I couldn’t do that – or, rather, shouldn’t, as I clearly had just done so. We made a deal. Within reason, if I didn’t feel like I could handle school that day, she’d call in for me. On those days, we went to historical sites, museums, shows, the library. I learned more outside of school, thanks to an involved parent, than I ever did sitting through class.
Parental Inspiration
There is parental support, and then there are parents who serve as a role model. Musician Jacob Hyman was inspired by his father’s work. “My dad’s a musician,” he told us.
He has this crazy technical knowledge and innate ability. He’s got almost perfect pitch. He can play anything by ear on the piano; he also plays the accordion, the clarinet, the drums, and the guitar. My parents tried to get me to play piano. I took lessons on three separate occasions from different teachers. I was just never really motivated. I think it was partially the piano. Some things come naturally to me, but piano is certainly not one of them. Reading music is also not one of them. That was really frustrating to me, trying to get this technical knowledge of something that my brain seemed to not want. I’m very math resistant. After I stopped with the piano, I took my first drum lesson in school with the band. My parents got me a used drum set for my birthday and that was it.
Lisa Brody also had a mother who was an artist and passed along her passion. “Every day we did something creative in terms of art, whether it was drawing in a coloring book or more massive creative projects around the house. I would spend hours in my room doing art. I didn’t want my artwork hung, I didn’t want to show it to anyone, I just did it for myself.”
But not everyone gets their talent from their parents. Cecil Castellucci’s multifaceted talents span writing, music, and film, whereas their parents were scientists. Despite the differences, their parents were able to nurture Castelluci’s creative passions:
My parents do research; they’re trying to figure out stories. They’re trying to figure out genetics, but it’s really about the story. For me, I don’t see any difference; it’s the same thing. My mother likes to tell the story of when I was like three years old, and she came into the living room and I was sobbing. My mom asked, “What is going on, what’s wrong?” I said, “It’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.” PBS was on, and it was a show about Trojan women in ancient Greece with subtitles. But I couldn’t read, so my mom asked, “How do you know what’s going on?” I told her it was because I could see how the people were interacting; I knew what was happening. I think that was the moment where my mom realized, this girl is not going to be a scientist – she’s going to be an artist. I think because she recognized that, she encouraged any sort of creative things that I wanted to do. For example, when I was really little, my mom had this book that she used to try to get my brother and me to play all the time called Let’s Play Math. I didn’t like that boring game. But if it had been Let’s Tell a Story or Let’s Make Something Up, then I would have played it.
“When I was four years old,” Castellucci said, “my mom started taking me to the opera, the ballet, and to New York City to see fancy movies.”
My favorite opera was The Magic Flute. Whenever we traveled anywhere, to visit a house or something like that, I was always interested in the story. What’s the story here? What’s the story of the house? How did the people feel when they lived here? What were they like? What was the difference between the people who were upstairs and downstairs? Who would I have been in this place? We always did stuff and talked about stories. Even to this day, one of us will read a book and then we’ll get everybody else to read it, and then whenever we’re all in the same city, we’ll have a conversation about it.
Parents can be a driving force in a young artist’s life, as we have seen (and will continue to see). From modeling creative values and behavior to offering opportunities and resources to ensuring a child grows up loved, great parents are an inspiration that can continue to have an effect into adulthood. Artist Isabelle Bryer told us:
I used art to make myself feel better about being homesick and so far away from my family in France. When I painted something, I took a photo and mailed it to my mother. She ended up having mounds of photos of every painting I had ever made – the ugly ones, the good ones, the tiny ones. She kept them all.
