Lessons

" The lessons you are meant to learn are in your work. To see them, you need only look at the work clearly---without judgement, without need or fear, without wishes or hopes. Without emotional expectations. Ask what your work needs, not what you need. Then set aside your fears and listen...."
--from Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland

From Art and Fear by David Bayles & Ted Orland

"Art is like beginning a sentence before you know its ending. The risks are obvious: you may never get to the end of the sentence at all---or having gotten there, you may not have said anything."


Yep. (sigh)

About ART and also LIFE....

"The lesson here is simply that courting approval, even that of peers, puts a dangerous amount of power in the hands of the audience. Worse yet, the audience is seldom in a position to grant (or withhold) approval on the one issue that really counts---namely, whether or not you're making progress in your work. They're in a good position to comment on how they're moved (or challenged or entertained) by the finished product, but have little knowledge or interest in your process....the only pure communication is between you and your work."
                                   --from Art and Fear by David Bayles & Ted Orland

From Art and Fear by David Bayles & Ted Orland

"If you think good work is somehow synonymous with perfect work, you are headed for big trouble. Art is human; error is human; ergo, art is error. Inevitably, your work (like, uh, the preceding syllogism....) will be flawed. Why? Because you're a human being, and only human beings, warts and all, make art. Without warts, it is not clear what you would be, but clearly you wouldn't be one of us."

David Bales & Ted Orland said...

"...if making art gives substance to your sense of self, the corresponding fear is that you're not up to the task---that you can't do it, or can't do it well, or can't do it again; or that you're not a real artist, or not a good artist, or have no talent, or have nothing to say. The line between an artist and his/her work is a fine one at best...making art can feel dangerous & revealing. Making art precipitates self-doubt, stirring deep waters that lay between what you know you should be, and what you fear you might be."
---from Art & Fear

From Art and Fear by David Bayles & Ted Orland

"Making art means working in the face of uncertainty; it means living with doubt & contradiction, doing something no one much cares whether you do, and for which there may be neither 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."