I was commissioned in 2003 to create an original show, and began developing 'Upwake.' 'Upwake' tells the story of Zero, a modern-day business man, going to work with his life in a suitcase, stuck between dream and reality and not able to decipher the two. I wanted 'Upwake' to have the same audiovisual qualities as a movie would.
A commission and an original are two different things, and both have their virtues and vices. A commission is a bit more collaborative, in that you outline the story that you think should be told, and then you write it.
We've all been there - you find something moving, you commission a painting. I know one wall of my living room is taken up by a mural of the end of Toy Story 3.
I get approached to do a lot of commissioned art. Sometimes I do it, but I usually don't, given the day job and everything I've sort of got going on. I'm really passionate about it; there's not that much time left over for the other commissioned projects.
People forget that Mozart wrote for commissions. There's a thing in psychology where they think if it's popular, it can't be serious.
One of the coolest things Twickenham Fest does is to commission new works.
Anytime someone basically commissions a piece, I write a song based on something personal to them. I go online and I do research on that person - Wikipedia, YouTube interviews, anywhere I can find a piece of information that kind of tugs at your heart a little bit.
In fact, the first piece of art I ever sold, I paid someone else to make the next one, so I could actually keep going out drinking.
For hundreds of years people have talked about artists having inspiration, but often, some persons would say, write us a symphony or write us a song, on commission. The artists would come up with a masterpiece without waiting to have their muse inspire them.
'Ruined' was a play which was somewhat of an anomaly in that I did not take a commission until it was finished because I really wanted to explore the subject matter unencumbered. Otherwise, I felt as though I'd have the voice of dramaturges and literary managers saying, 'This is great, but we'll never be able to produce it.'
When I was in the NFL, whenever I got cut from a team I would do paintings of the players, they would pay me $4,000 to $5,000 to do their painting of their family, and that's how I survived until another team picked me up.
I no longer enjoy drawing people's pets. I just want to draw what I want to draw and have people not tell me what to draw.
The trick is to compose what one wants to compose and to get it commissioned afterward.
In aristocratic societies, rich people used to commission exquisite paintings for their walls.
I wish I'd been better able to resist the sense of obligation to write some of the poems I did. It's in the nature of commissioned work to be written too much from the side of your mind that knows what it's doing, which dries up the poetry.
I commissioned this artist to make these silver tomahawks by hand. Larry Sellers, who plays Cloud Dancing on the show, blessed and cleansed them and all.
That is how America gets her art: Contracting firms get the contract and the honor. Starving artists do the work. The government pays for sculpturing thousands of dollars, of which the sculptor gets a hundred or so.
Don't forget that Mozart worked on commission. He almost always would write something if he knew exactly who was paying for it and where it would be performed. So you can't really separate the creation of genius from the appreciation of it.
At Performa in New York, there are a lot of commissions, but Manchester Festival is the only festival where everything is fully produced by the festival.
