Even talent is rarely distinguishable, over the long run, from perseverance and lots of hard work.

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

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.

Vision, Uncertainty, and Knowledge of Materials are inevitabilities that all artists must acknowledge and learn from: vision is always ahead of execution, knowledge of materials is your contact with reality, and uncertainty is a virtue.

In the end it all comes down to this: you have a choice (or more accurately a rolling tangle of choices) between giving your work your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot - and thereby guaranteeing that it will not make you happy. It becomes a choice between certainty and uncertainty. And curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice.

The seed of your next artwork lies embedded in the imperfections of your current piece.

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