Courage

If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. -- Vincent van Gogh    

Artists too often obey that nasty little loud voice that tells us to give up.  A few bad days in the studio, and we are ready to throw in the towel.  We look at another artist's work and think: "I'll never be that good."  In the United States, where to get second place is to lose, we give up because we "aren't as good as......."      

Any adult in our culture who wants to create art and, by golly, does make art is a success in my eyes. If I competed in the Olympics and came in dead last, would I be thrilled that I was a world class athlete who even got to go in the first place?  What if I won a Bronze Medal?  Would I think I was a failure because I didn't win the Gold?  Our media-saturated world would tell me that indeed I was a failure.  Why?  Because there's only one winner. 
Well, I'm here to say that making art is not a zero-sum game.  So.... 

Here are some words from the classic book, Art & Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland.
"Today artwork does not emerge from a secure common ground... Making art now means working in the face of uncertainty; it means living with doubt and contradiction, doing something no one much cares whether you do, and for which there may be neither audience or reward. Making the work you want to make means setting aside these doubts so that you may see clearly what you have done, and thereby see where to go next. Making the work you want to make means finding nourishment within the work itself."    


Here's another:
” ‘Artist’ has gradually become a form of identity which (as every artist knows) often carries with it as many drawbacks as benefits.  Consider that if artist equals self, then when (inevitably) you make flawed art, you are a flawed person, and when (worse yet) you make no art, you are no person at all!”   
 

Here is an early drawing by Vincent van Gogh.  Pretty awkward, huh?  So, how did he get to be one of the greatest artists of all time?  

He Kept At It! 

            So you keep at it too!!!!!!!!!    


'Nuff said.

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