I am often approached by young talents who are obsessed with producing work. They are beautiful, talented kids, who are intent on “succeeding” and yet their efforts are mainly focused on marketing themselves.
This is the age of writers who hardly ever read, painters who have no knowledge of art history, filmmakers whose only source of nourishment comes from mainstream trash, and musicians who believe that they were cut out to be rock stars.
The urge to show, exhibit or publish is understandable, but it is imperative to realize that no matter how much you excel in technique, if there is no essence or wisdom in what you offering, your work will be immature, jejune or mediocre at best.
They say seventy five percent of a job is finding the right tool for it. Your tool, as an artist, is your self, who you are. You have to turn yourself into the ideal tool for your creative process. As an artist, your life (hopefully any intelligent person’s life for that matter), should be a constant challenge to hone your mind, to accumulate knowledge, to process that knowledge and to turn it into wisdom. Only then can you become a well-rounded human being. Only then the work that you create will be of some relevance and will resonate in people’s minds and souls.
“Dignity” 48×60 Acrylic on canvas 2013.
