A Few Tips For Potential Artists At TPAA

Design, Create, and Explore is the motto of the Palmdale Aerospace Academy, and to many creativity is a prime example of man’s capabilities. While the school’s motto mostly refers to creativity of the engineering kind, the school has a bit of a history of non-school related art. Since the school’s opening in 2012, there’s been a yearly drama club that has performed a handful of after school plays since it’s inception. In 2012, there was an after school music club that, unfortunately, dissolved after a few months due to schedule conflicts with students attending the club.

Still, I highly encourage art of all forms from anyone, which will be the subject of this writing. Something that one should always keep in mind is that if you’re interested in doing something creative, whether it be writing a book, making a movie, or whatever, you need to have a strong work ethic for it. That might sound surprising, but if you seriously want to make something worth creating, you need to be determined to do it. You need to finish everything you start, and put your heart into it. You must also plan things out as well beforehand; if you want to join a club, for example, then you need to make sure that you’ll be able to able to make it to most, if not all, of the days the club is hosted. You should also take initiative and try to help the club plan events and projects out, as well as try your best to make it to every event and project.

With all of that being said, you shouldn’t put too much thought into it. If you want to make music, for example, then don’t try to pigeonhole what kind of music you want to make before you actually start making it. That might sound weird, but think of it like this: If you’re sitting in your room with a guitar and think, “I’m going to write a thrash metal song,” then you’re going to end up sitting there for who knows how long trying to come up with a good riff only to not come up with anything because you’re trying too hard to force yourself into a specific genre. The best way to handle creativity is to simply make whatever’s on your mind and allow your audience to come up with tags and terms for it later.

Speaking of the audience: Don’t pay attention to them. What I mean by this is that you shouldn’t worry about what others say about your work, or else you’ll end up trying to “edit” your material in order for it to be enjoyable for others. The only person that matters when it comes to your stuff is you. If you’re happy with it, that’s all that matters.

Another good tip to keep in mind for creating is to always get yourself influenced by a wide variety of media by expanding your tastes. Read different authors of different styles and time periods. Expand the amount of music genres you listen to and try to learn the difference between slowcore and sadcore after finding out about the two genres. Watch films produced from third-world countries. Look at 1920’s dada art and modern TV shows for visual influences. It’s been said that you and your work is simply the result of the things you allow yourself to be absorbed with, and that saying directly applies to your artistic style as well.

Finally, one last thing that needs to be said about the subject is that as long as your heart’s in it, and that you genuinely tried to put your all into it, it does not matter how sloppy the final product turns out. Some might say that this is cheating, but it’s not: you can tell the difference between a soulless hunk of trash and a messy piece of work with actual thought put into it. For example, the 2010 Ugandan action movie Who Killed Captain Alex? features some of the absolute worst acting, editing, and special effects in recent history, yet it remains as one of the most inspiring independent films of recent years due to the amount of passion put into it. Made on a shoestring budget by a group of people in an impoverished village, you can tell exactly how much heart was actually put into the movie, which practically proves my point that low-quality doesn’t inherently make a bad piece of work. This also goes back to a point that was made earlier on reactions: The only person who matters when it comes to your art is you, so even if your creations get trashed by the public, it doesn’t even really matter.

Now that I got all of that out of the way, I would now like to list off a few ways for your work to be released.

• Design: Graphic design can be a win-win situation for everyone involved: The designer wins by allowing their creativity to be the face of a specific item (book/record/sign/etc) and the person whose product is receiving the design wins by getting a good-looking product. At TPAA, Yearbook has a designated design team who use computer programs such as Gimp to create backgrounds as well as the cover art for the yearbook, so it wouldn’t be that bad of an idea to try and get into that class for any aspiring designers. If you want to do stuff outside of school, simply ask around. See if your friends are doing anything that could use a cover, or if you go to a non-school community club-type thing, see if they’re in need of it. One last thing: Keep a portfolio. Save every design you make, and even make designs for made-up products so people can see the ideas you have.

• Writing: Literature is typically used by writers as a way to make a point with the use of metaphors and so forth. If that’s what you want to do, write about something that you think about often. At school, there’s the creative writing class, which as one might expect, is all about editing, revising, and of course, creative writing. This school year the class began production of a literary journal composed of written works by students, outside and inside the class, and there’s been plans to continue these journals annually. Outside of school, there’s a large sum of online websites dedicated to writing. There’s also the annual National Novel Writing Month, in which users who sign up (for free) are given the challenge to write a novel-length work within the month of November. Finally, there are a lot of literary magazines that are allow short story submissions (some of which will even pay for stories they’d want to publish), so that’s also an option.

• Film: Similar to literature, film is a way for people to express certain ideas and points on the visual medium, which allows a large range of artistic possibilities for filmmakers. While there’s no movie clubs on school campus, there is Drama Club, which focuses on acting and plays, which can be crucial in film. With that being said, outside of school websites such as Vimeo, Youtube, and Dailymotion exist for the sole purpose of uploading videos, which gives you a platform to publish your works.

• Music: Music is a way for people to express ideas with the use of sound, and in recent years it has become easier to release. Currently, there are no clubs about the creation of music, but there’s nothing stopping anyone from working on it outside of school. Just like everything else, if one wants to, say, start a band, they must be committed to it. Bands must practice and jam as frequently as their schedules allow them too. Thanks to technology that allows us to make recordings on our computers, and the amount of recording programs available such as Audacity and GarageBand, now is perhaps the best time to be alive for a musician for it’s now easier than ever to record. And thanks to Bandcamp, which allows users to upload their own music for free, it’s easy to release music as well. The Antelope Valley’s history with underground music has been, essentially, a series of small blips of activity spaced out from one another, however thanks to recent creations such as Bandcamp and Lancaster’s Voodoo Vinyl, there might be a live music scene in development for years to come, which might allow artists to perform live.

With all being said and done, the TPAA encourages all students to do their best in school and to create the best they can. These little tidbits of advice hopefully will help some of you out with your own creations, and I hope that you all end up making things that you’re proud of.