Sunday, October 23, 2011

Good Enough?

I do not think you need to be particularly good to be a successful artist.  Oh, you need basic skills, sure.
How to get the paint to stick to the canvas, which colors go together and which one's clash, how to lay a decent weld, whatever rudimentary elements your art may require.
   I know successful writers, people who have made it to the top in the movie industry, very successful musicians, extremely successful guitar makers and some fine painting artists.  I am not sure how good any of them are?
   They have become who they are by definition, it is what they do.  These people I know were given nothing.  They were all childhood friends.  I know where they lived, who their parents were, went to the same schools with them, laughed and danced and got into some trouble with some of them!  They were just people, not rich at all.  Ate tomato and cheese sandwiches during lunch.
   They all have one thing in common: discipline, drive and ambition.  Especially at the beginning they all produced junk, reams of garbled poetry, mangled stories, very poor theater productions that wouldn't rate a review, paintings that weren't worth the canvas that they were on.  Nothing stopped them.  They were on a road and they were going to take it for the full ride.
   The trick to being a musician is practice.  Any art is no different.  Each and every day with no exceptions,
practice.  Writing is the same.  Five pages a day, everyday until it becomes easy and then ten.  Pretty soon you will become what you do.

My art and other stuff is HERE

2 comments:

T. said...

So true! Most people give up in the beginning because they didn't produce amazing works of art right from the start. But the reality is it takes work and lots of it to really see the talent that lies within.

Anonymous said...

So you say, Jer. But! I have to say I've seen art work that the artist has been doing for years. Never looks much better from the beginning to the end! (Ok, I'm talking my own here. LOL)