sketches from life

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.                         -Thomas Merton

I just began reading a book called Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, and even as little as I've read so far, I've really enjoyed it. It has already made some very good points. For instance, it talked about the struggle in continuing in art, and not quitting. They rightly recognize the fear behind most instances of quitting. Basically, it's a fear of failure. That's common. It's human. But it's also dangerous.

We allow fear to stop us from accomplishing anything. We let ourselves get distracted by what's going on around us. We become discouraged when other people are doing better than we are. We call it an inability to comply with deadlines or to work under certain conditions, or sometimes we simply contribute it to laziness, but what it boils down to is a fear of failure. The book makes a very good point about this -- one which I've recently come to realize myself as well: that when we label ourselves as artists, we identify ourselves with our art, and therefore, a bad piece of art translates to mean that we are bad artists. We become so closely identified with what we are creating that if once we fail, it instantly means we are a failure. But that's not true!

As a young artist, still trying to figure out what I have to say and where I'm going with all of this, I am right there in the middle of a lot of what this book is saying so far. Basically, art is scary. It makes you vulnerable. Creating art is like opening up a bit of your soul for people to look at, examine and criticize. It's a bit unnerving sometimes if you are still figuring things out. But that's part of what makes it so exciting. It really is an adventure!