Illustrate Your Love

by Babs Rappleye (aka Tucker Neel)

Artillery Magazine, Jan./Feb. 2020.

Dear Babs, I’m in college majoring in illustration and minoring in fine art. My problem is some of my fine-art professors put down illustration and make it seem I can’t be part of the “Art World” and still be an illustrator. What do I do?

—Stymied Student

Dear Stymied Student, Congratulations on your dedicated studies. Despite what cynical folks might say, the world needs more artists. And make no mistake, you’re an artist.

Anyone who tells you they know who can and can’t enter any art world is ignorant and selfish. Ignore them out of existence. Remember, there are many, many art worlds and they all matter because they all can impact the future of Art. I assume the world your instructors are referring to is the one characterized by big museum exhibitions mostly fed by wealthy patrons of blue-chip galleries. That is certainly one art world. Ninety-nine percent of artists, no matter their background, will never break into—or even—in that world. Being rich, white and having an MFA from certain schools might help, but it’s no guarantee. That world desperately needs to change. If you want to be part of it, do so to erase borders and welcome new citizens.

Tell your instructors that the idea that art made as illustration intended for popular consumption is intrinsically less critically and aesthetically important than art made for “art’s sake” is an OLD opinion from the last century. The truth is, most art—whatever its purpose—is not important, which makes sense because many things have to be unimportant for a few things to be important. But that doesn’t mean you, or any artist for that matter, can’t change definitions of what’s important and impact the future of what people call “Art.”

History proves this. Honoré Daumier, Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell, José Guadalupe Posada, Tom of Finland, Emory Douglas, Maira Kalman, R. Crumb, Allison Bechdel, Barbara Nessim, Art Spiegelman, and many, many more artists made Art in the form of caricatures, editorial illustrations, propaganda, comics, cartoons, graphic novels, animations, pornography, advertisements, and on and on. They changed ideas about how art can represent visible and invisible worlds, and in doing so expanded access to the Art World.

Ultimately, if other people refuse to let you into their world it might be time to make a new one. If you do, future artists will thank you.