Art is always slipping from your fingers like dripping oil. Its something you chase, and very rarely hold onto. And when you do of course, its the most beautiful experience you could possibly have and you can think of nothing but getting it back in your hands. And yes, your hands are grimy, because if you have really touched it, then you have been working, perhaps maddeningly so.
Art is temperamental and it starts to demand that from its makers. Its an emotional experience draining and pulling on its participants in ways folks that don’t spend hours at a time working on a painting can’t understand. Its demanding of effort, of craft and of commitment. You can’t stay still, it won’t let you. The emotions are too much to take sometime.
Perhaps that’s why there is always a cadre of nay-sayers on the internet ready to pounce with angry and demeaning comments on anyone who puts their work out for public consumption. I visit a lot of sites dedicated to the arts, from weekly posts about gallery shows, to blogs focusing on criticism to the individual blogs of artists of all stripes and persuasions. I am always stunned when someone takes time out of their day to fling angry criticism at an artist or creator. They know all that is wrong with the work and point it out gladly and happily. Letting one know in clear detail what he or she can or can’t do. And they are convinced that even the most ardent and talented professionals are just wayward souls pushed forward by nothing more than the winds of luck and money.
They are wrong of course, its not luck. If you are doing it, then you can do it.
There is no need to nay-say, your focus is too vital and If you keep to your work, then you are on the road to better things.
What is it that makes folks so angry about the artwork of others? Is it that they have been battered by the mountain of art’s energetic wrath one too many times – that they can no longer stand the site of those who still seek to climb? Or is it something else, something uncontrolled and tinged with the dark stains of regret and jealousy?