Someone e-mailed me after my blog yesterday with concerns for my mental well-being and tons of advice. Not to worry, I assured them. I’ve been here before. I know I’ll be back on my path eventually.
And I know I’ll also, someday, be back in that darkness again. It’s part of the deal.
If I’ve learned one thing since making a commitment to my art, it’s that you never get “there.” You never get to a place where you know for sure you are off the hook, done, did your best, successful. There's always another peak to climb. Always another goal to work toward.
I didn’t know this when I first started out. I thought you worked steadily a set number of years, got into some exhibits, found a fantastic gallery to represent you—and you had it made. You reached the top of the mountain and could plant your little flag.
It doesn’t work like that, for one. And second, when you get to the top of your mountain, settling for that is the worst thing you can do, as an artist.
Achieving success with your art is like any other real success. I’m not talking about the so-called “overnight success”. Overnight success happens, but not very often. As so many artists lament, “It took me 20 years to become an overnight success…” I’m talking about success that happens because you refuse to let failure stop you.
There are a lot of fits and stops to this process. Not all leads come through, not all efforts pay off. You bark up a lot of wrong trees. I know one artist whose goal was to get into an art exhibit in all fifty states—until she realized after state #28 that she’d never made a single sale from these exhibits. Her strategy wasn't really supporting her goal, which was to sell her work. It looked great on her resume, though.
Similarly, last year I redid a workshop I’d taken as a brand new artist seven years ago. The other attendees were mystified. I was a successful artist, wasn’t I? My work has been published, featured, exhibited, sold, promoted and awarded. I have professional goals in mind and know how to go about achieving them. I now often have other people asking ME for advice. What was I doing back in the beginner section with the new kids?
I was there because I needed to get back to the basics. Figuring out what I really wanted, how I was going to get there, determine what was standing in the way, and what I was going to do about it.
Many years ago, a street person/artist friend told my new lover (now my husband) and I, “You can’t take love for granted. You have to wake up every morning and ask your partner, ‘Do you love me?’ Every day you have to ask for your heart to be filled anew.” Hearing these words from a man who never knew where his next meal was coming from was heart-stopping. Could love be that fragile?
I know now that love—and your art—needs something every day. It may not get tended every day. But it needs your INTENTION every day. Even when it seems very fragile and far away, it needs to know you care. And that you intend to have it back, front and center, somehow, some way. It is that commitment that keeps you on your path.
So even as I hear the raging of my head in the early hours of the morning, I know in my heart it is temporary. Uncomfortable, painful, confusing, frustrating, even frightening from time to time. But temporary.
I know what a life without my art is like, and that isn’t going to happen every again.
