By William Pattison,aka Eric Morse
Over the weekend I got a chance to briefly chat with the
Wolf Pack's intro girl Mary Madcox, aka Nurse Hatchet. We were talking about a
project she is doing related to the story of Faust. I complimented on her choice
of subject matter because Faust is very significant to the horror community
these days. It saddens me that artists believe that they need to do what is
essentially Faustian deals with cliques, because they feel that is the only way
to make it in this industry. They act like the quality and originality of their
work is pretty much insignificant unless they are in the cool crowd and have
their approval. this brought up a memory I had of a talk I had with Violet
VanDoren on this same subject. Violet had it in her head that she needed to be
in a clique to get a chance to have her novels promoted and to become famous. I
tried to tell her that if you have talent you don't need the approval of a
clique or any kind of social group. Your work will find its audience on its
own. All a clique provides is ego stroking because the fact is the person in
the clique doesn't have the confidence to believe in their own work. The answer
I got from Violet was I was being negative and narrow minded because I don't
like cliques. It is true I don't like cliques. I mourn every artist who throws
away their moral integrity for the cheap falseness that those groups encourage.
It is a tragedy that, like Faust, these artists sell their souls because they
don't have enough confidence in themselves to stand up and let their work speak
for itself. A true artist stands on their own feet and believes in their own
work. That is not being negative, that is being truthful, something these
cliques shy away from. Sorry, if you don't like my opinion. It is the truth
according to me, and that is the one person I have complete confidence in.
