It is a fundamental discovery I made many years ago, that to be a practicing artist of any worth at all you have to admit to the world your obsessions and secrets. You have to know in advance and allow that you will have family, friends, strangers, critics, etc. who will not like them. But you have to do it anyway, it is your obligation as an artist. It is your job. Your job is to create what you really want to create. That is what the world is waiting for from you. They don’t want someone else’s art, someone else’s vision. They want YOUR art and YOUR vision.
You may think that people who do ‘pretty pictures’ escape this scrutiny, but that is not true. For every artist obsessed with sunsets and puppy dogs or other sweet things, there are people who diss them, who put them out of the art category and into the schlock crap category. And that artist has to know that and allow it and keep doing what they want to do. It is the only way for an artist to get close to their passion and if an artist doesn’t get close to his or her passion, they will not create art for very long.
“Art is a microscope which the artist fixes on the secrets of his soul, and shows to people these secrets which are common to all.” – Leo Tolstoy
Drawing © 2022 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com