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

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

Artmaking involves skills that can be learned. . . In large measure becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive. . . Even talent is rarely distinguishable, over the long run, from perseverance and lots of hard work.

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

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

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.

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.