There's generally no good reason why others should care about most of any one artist's work. The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars.

Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art

Tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding.

Something about making art has to do with overcoming things, giving us a clear opportunity for doing things in ways we have always known we should do them.

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 an audience nor 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.

Art is a high calling - fears are coincidental. Coincidental, sneaky and disruptive, we might add, disguising themselves variously as laziness, resistance to deadlines, irritation with materials or surroundings, distraction over the achievements of others - indeed as anything that keeps you from giving your work your best shot. What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don't, quit.

Art is like beginning a sentence before you know its ending.