Art is not easy, pt 2.
I recently read the following quote on line: “Any musician who tells you that it’s always fun is either lying or hasn’t been a musician very long. The truth is being a musician won’t always be fun, but it will ALWAYS be worth it. It’s a life very well spent.” This quote is applicable not only to music, but to the larger art world as well.
Art is not always fun. If I told you that every moment that I have spent painting icons over the past 20 years has been full of joy and happiness I would be lying. The fact is that painting icons has been a major thorn in my side at times. Yes, I love to paint icons and hopefully soon will be back to working on them, but at the same time painting icons has been a major source of growth for me. Growth is not always easy. Growth is not always fun. Sure there are times when experimenting with new ideas or techniques is exciting, but that is not always the case. There are times though when growth is nothing less than a total pain… And yet true growth is always worth it.
Growth as an artist is what keeps you alive as an artist. Talent will only get you so far. “For every artist who has developed a mature vision with grace and speed, countless others have laboriously nurtured their art through fertile periods and dry spells, through false stares and breakaway bursts, through successive and significant changes of direction, medium and subject matter. Talent may get someone off the starting blocks faster, but without a sense of direction or a goal to strive for, it won’t count for much.” [Art & Fear, David Bayles & Ted Orland, pg 27] You must push yourself to stay alive in your art by acquiring new skills, new perspectives and never settle for what you have done in the past. If there are things which are holding you back from working in your art, you must push to work through those issues in order to get to the art that is waiting on the other side of them. New art rarely just appears. Most of the time you must earn it. “Artists get better by sharpening their skills or by acquiring new ones; they get better by learning to work, and by learning from their work.” [Art & Fear, pg 28]
In the end though, the new art, that which you worked so hard to produce, is worth it. Art, music, dance, all of the arts are the language of beauty and love. Every time you create a new piece, you add beauty and love to the world. And that is definitely worth the blood, sweat and tears that goes into the creation of that beauty.
