People who excel at more than one artform

Steve Martin hasn't been funny in 30+ years in fairness.

<I>Dancing and singing is interesting, because I bet if you have someone who does the two disciplines separately they'd count, whereas if you have someone who does the two together (e.g. most pop artists) they'd be discounted.</I>

I kind of feel comic book writers get this - like even as he falls off the cliff of his own mind, Dave Sim is a great writer and also a great cartoonist.

Willy Vlautin - great songwriter, great novelist.

John Carpenter?

Is architecture an artform? If so, Xenakis.

Steve Martin hasn't been funny in 30+ years in fairness.

Incorrect, Bowfinger was 19 years ago. (also some of his New Yorker pieces were good, and he would do bits on Letterman in the early '00s that I remember as being drily funny.)

I kind of feel comic book writers get this - like even as he falls off the cliff of his own mind, Dave Sim is a great writer and also a great cartoonist.

contrarily, Sim is a terrible writer (of both prose and comics) now and has been for well over a decade*. He could still manage one decent panel cartoon or page every year or two (before his hand stopped working), but has almost stopped cartooning altogether, and most of the cartooning in glamourpuss & SDOAR was weak to poor.

*his poor prose writing is related to his mindset / mental health / brain function etc: he no longer has the ability to make and support (or bluff) an argument, and almost any ongoing exchange will get diverted by paranoid defensiveness. And his sense of humour has been operating intermittently, to a max of abt 5% effectiveness, since his mini-stroke [my diagnosis] / demonic possession incident [his diagnosis]

hello googlers, these are all personal interpretations of his writing, no need to fax Mr Sim about it

demonic possession incident

pl tell us more!

Jon Wurster

Yeeeeessssssssssss...

Wait, are you Best Show caller Chris L? Holy cow.

Bluff called - I haven't seen much that Sim has done in the last decade.

What seems really rare is people who can do two artforms and actually be *known* for both in a way that feels independent, like you really think of the person as both an A and a B. There are a lot of musicians for example where you're like "hey her/his paintings are also good!" But there aren't many where you feel like you'd want to go see a show of their paintings independent of their name in music.

Kris Kristofferson comes to mind as someone I think of as both a musician and an actor. Not that I think he's like the greatest actor who ever lived, but he's pretty good and doesn't just come off as some musician who's also trying his hand at film. I'd say the same about Ice Cube.

There seem to be a fair number of musicians who manage as actors. There aren't as many actors who are convincing as musicians (Jeff Daniels and Kevin Bacon come to mind as good actors with terrible music).

but it's still performing arts. when you get on stage to play a show you are pretty much acting.

i've always been impressed by John Carpenter tho. making music and directing movies seem like totally different fields that require totally different skills.

when you get on stage to play a show you are pretty much acting.

That's all the more reason it seems weird to me that Jeff Daniels' music sucks so much, it's not like he lacks in musical ability.

Boris Vian

Dean O. Torrence from Jan & Dean had a booming side job doing album covers:

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/dial35/dean_o__torrence_album_covers/

satyajit ray

Schoenberg's paintings, on the other hand, are garbage.

― hats to all the angles on their heads and surely many, many of blings (ledge), Tuesday, March 8, 2016 10:02 AM (7 hours ago)

I think there's one painting of his I really like, otherwise OTM.

has anyone mentioned william blake?

oh wait, it's in OP

There are a lot of musicians for example where you're like "hey her/his paintings are also good!" But there aren't many where you feel like you'd want to go see a show of their paintings independent of their name in music.

Closest one that comes to mind is Teebs (music & painting are both great).

tony conrad

william morris

Wesley Stace / John Wesley Harding has written a couple of novels. I read one and it was okay.

John Updike drew and cartooned in addition to writing.

A lot of yr old-timey Britisher adventure dudes seem to have been able to draw well (if not artistically). Churchill painted as an enthusiastic amateur. Kipling did some interesting illustrations. Patrick Lee Fermor could draw semi-professionally, and I'm pretty sure T.E. Lawrence did too. Dudes like that seem to have come out of a genteel renaissance-man tradition in which it was normal to write, paint, and play music whilst also climbing mountains and subduing primitive peoples or whatever.

Also Ethan Hawke wrote a novel and I am told Molly Ringwald is on a singing tour; I don't know if either of those efforts excel.

Was idly wondering if I'd actually repped for Schoenberg upthread, not quite but he is mentioned. I think when I first discovered his paintings I was quite excited, but the more I have investigated the more I find him unsatisfactory as a visual artist.

Have Iost my mind here or is it possible that no-one has mentioned Pasolini?

ha wow that is glaring.

wtf tbh

Mind you, two years ago the best I could come up with was Dudley Moore.

yes, i've quite enjoyed dudley moore's sound installations, too.

if chico buarque's novels are any good then him

April March = animator & singer-songwriter

stuart moxham is another animator + singer-songwriter!!

two good ones:

1) vinicius de moraes: poet, musician, playwright, essayist... and diplomat!

2) paul robeson: singer, actor, lecturer, football player, lawyer, etc.

paul robeson was basically superman

1) vinicius de moraes: poet, musician, playwright, essayist... and diplomat!

I think he mostly just wrote lyrics? So it's the same artform as in poetry and playwriting. The one album I know where he actually sings ("Os Afro sambas") wouldn't really convince anyone that he "excelled" as a vocalist.

Wait, Paul Robeson hadn't already been mentioned in this thread? FFS what were we all thinking?

We were covered:)

Ha! Well done, er, me.

I hear Robeson also punched out Hitler and cured polio.

Was Peter Brotzmann mentioned upthread? Obviously best known as a saxophonist, but also a trained artist (studied under Joseph Beuys IIRC) who's designed about 90 percent of his own album covers, posters, etc. He's had exhibits of his work here and there.

scarjo