I’ve always believed that tal­ent, artis­tic or not, is learned and not ran­domly granted to some and not oth­ers. To me it’s both an intrin­sic and con­stantly honed trait that is often neglected, espe­cially when the spe­cific tal­ent has to do with art.

There comes a point where artists believe the end result almost seems impos­si­ble, yet in your mind’s eye it’s easy to envi­sion the final piece as an accom­plish­ment and not a gru­el­ing jour­ney to your destination.

To me, art in it of itself can be extremely daunt­ing. When you con­nect pen­cil to paper, swirling your hand in motion you almost have to let your imag­i­na­tion com­pletely take over. When the critic in you takes over nit­pick­ing var­i­ous aspects of your work it becomes dif­fi­cult to ignore those thoughts. In this phase you’re more inclined to fix things that might have been per­fectly in tune to your artwork.

There’s noth­ing more dis­tract­ing than you dis­tract­ing your­self. When it’s another per­son, hov­er­ing over your shoul­der, point­ing out things that appear to be out of place, you sim­ply ignore them. When it’s you, the artist, stop­ping mid­way, won­der­ing why you chose to draw a straight line instead of a squig­gly one, it’s amaz­ing that art­work is often completed.

It’s evi­dent that artists draw from their per­sonal self, that art­work is in a sense a per­sonal reflec­tion, but when the art­work fails, then do you as the artist fail as well? The artist and their art­work are inseparable.

I’ve had var­i­ous art pieces, be they draw­ing or sculp­ture, on dis­play in art shows and gal­leries and wit­nessed either two things from the per­son look­ing at the piece. They either offer con­struc­tive crit­i­cism, which can be a good and a bad thing, sim­ply “don’t get it” or bad mouth the work.

Yes, art­work is sub­jec­tive but to drag the art­work through the mud can be taken as a per­sonal attack on the artist. After all, it’s the artists’ sweat, blood and tears present in that vase you’re look­ing at or that dragon sculp­ture hang­ing from piano wire.

There was a process involved wherein the artist directs their focus and energy on their art­work and there’s not an artist on this planet that doesn’t want feed­back when the art­work is com­pleted. In fact one could say that an artist does what he or she com­mits them­selves to because they love their craft, enjoy the jour­ney from sketch to com­ple­tion and when all is said and done, they want their art­work to com­mu­ni­cate to others.

In my per­sonal expe­ri­ence, art has been both chal­leng­ing in the sense that you worry whether or not your art­work will com­mu­ni­cate and look appeas­ing and on top of that if how you envi­sioned it ini­tially will con­vey itself suc­cess­fully in what­ever medium you’ve cho­sen to use. Yet, in the end, whether you know it or not, it always seems to work itself out so long as you stick with it and choose not to aban­don it, even if you’d rather believe the critic in you.