DO NOT BECOME AN ARTIST.
If you can do something else, do it. However, if this is what you are, god love you, it will never be an easy path. Our eyes, our hands, our minds are committed to service. It is a calling. It will demand every sacrifice of you as your serve. If this is what you are, it was never a choice to do anything else. I am not talking to those of you who create merely out moods or in seasons or way back when. I am speaking to you give blood on a regular basis. Every battle you fight, every sacrifice made to insure your survival proves your conviction that no one and nothing can tear you from your station. This is an honor. To create HERE and NOW. To be the eyes the soul of your time. We are so very privileged to have all our opportunities; this exquisite FREEDOM to express, to adorn, and to synthesize the world we live in. Humble yourself to this calling, serve with passion. Suck the marrow out life! Transform another mind, bring beauty down from the mountain to the cities of men, challenge values, and raise awareness of what it is, to be a part of this human condition. Your reward will be the singing of the stars, the humming of the spheres. To toil in the duty of tribute to culture. To live an extraordinary existence!
I challenge you TO FAIL. Fail magnificently! For it is the only way to succeed. When you finally find success it is a shock to find that this is the first in a long line proving yourself…success is a process that pushes you to out do yourself without limit or end. As you succeed, I challenge you do so with humility and help those that who are climbing with you or behind you. If you can mentor, give someone the advice or confidence no one maybe ever gave you. Succeed so that you may be a shining example of the possible glory of being human, of being a creator. It is so much richer an existence to find yourself among friends than to find yourself alone. We are on this path together.
PS: To those who do not create art, I challenge you to support a living artist and become a collector. Artists are nothing without the belief of another person who values what they are putting into this world. You make a difference. Patronage keeps art alive. There are those amazing few who have come forward for me, they sustain me and fuel my ability to continue. If no one ever came forward for me, I would not be where I am now. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein in the Moveable Feast: - do not buy nice things, do not buy clothes, or expensive food, buy art. This is what is meaningful in this world. Invest in your culture. The artist does not need their creation. They made it for one person, the one to whom it belongs. The one person who resonates with the piece and cannot imagine their life without it.
