JOHN O’BRIEN

John O’Brien presently lives in the Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia. O’Brien is an award winning film and TV. Script writer and singer, musician and Executive Director of Arts Upper Hunter Arts.

The artist as hero. The artist as anti-hero. The artist as exceptional or genius. The artist as seeing things different. Seeing things slant. Experimenting. These are all variations of the artist as admirable for their inability to connect to the normal. Strange to say though,

· I’ve rarely thought of myself as normal.

· And long thought of myself as an artist (writer, musician, performer, comedian, collaborator).

· But have never really drawn a connection between those two, adrift among the normal, expressing my gift.

I don’t think about that connection if it exists. One, my non-normality, is about my social skills, my history, being bullied in boarding school, worrying about being liked. The other, to be a creative person, is about my ambitions, my drive, how I want to see myself. But also about my ability to see the big picture, see connections, get excited by some crazy abstruse linkage encrusted with ideas and grease. Me myself, expressing – in an outward fashion – to an audience out there of … humans.

The creative battle for me is about whether I’m any good. I’ve written brilliant scripts and dreadful scripts. I’ve written songs that are lame, and others that are lamé. I’ve missed the point … and hit the bullseye. So doubt and failure are my constant companions as an artist. Which is why a community of artists is so crucial. To normalise all those odd experimentations, to embrace the weird. Is that special to artists? Maybe. Nowadays I am supporting other artists through my work. The inevitable loneliness of the doubting creative is best finessed with community, with likeminded others. Even so, for me there is a winding and exciting greater pathway: creativity and self-expression can be anyone’s and offer wonders to people, such as critical thinking and seeing things slant. Artists aren’t necessarily special, art is.

- John O’Brien © 2023.