by Daniel Bullard-Bates
One of the greatest struggles of the artist is to discover one’s areas of expertise and come to terms with one’s limitations. This can be brutal and occasionally heartbreaking: One can’t help but feel sympathy for the person who dreams of being a painter only to discover they are colorblind, or the singer-songwriter who is hopelessly tone-deaf. It can also be empowering; discovering that one has a talent for the thing they most love to do is an awe-inspiring revelation.I remember reading Fight Club and thinking, “There’s nobody I can think of who could better do this than [David] Fincher.” It’s like it was made for him. It’s the kind of text married to someone of his talents.-Edward Norton, AV Club Interview
In an interview with us last month, Kellee Santiago of thatgamecompany said that they avoid overt narratives as a company because, “None of us are professional storytellers nor have much experience in it, so why would we try and compete with games that hire extremely established writers?” A statement of this kind may seem obvious to many, but artistry is never so simple. Artistic creation is the stuff of dreams. Art tells us that we can do whatever we want to do. Kellee Santiago’s statement, to me, is both encouraging and humbling.
