Two thoughts merging this morning....
Sometimes I come across comments people have made in discussion groups or articles about my blog. I'm always intrigued by what THEY find useful or inspirational. Because I try to always write from MY heart, you get a window into someone ELSE's heart when you see what resonated with them.
I started my blog with a desire to share professional development skills. It was going to be very serious and text-bookish, hopefully lightened somewhat with my decidedly different take on things.
It quickly became more of a journal--but a journal with a focus and a purpose. As I worked through my OWN learning curve, I would share this with a wider audience.
Sometimes I wonder if that's of any great use to anyone else (though I would still write anyway).
Then I get the proof I need that it's not necessarily the "how" people need--it's the "why".
A few days ago, my daughter's high school held their "Nostalgia" show. Students try out with various performing arts acts--song, instrumentals, dance--and put together an evening of fun.
My daughter had her own issues she worked through successfully, and she did a bang-up job onstage (if I do say so myself.) But one of her best friends struggled mightily with less obvious success.
She lost her accompanist at the very last minute. She agonized whether to drop out of the show or pick another song someone else could play for her. She decided to do the latter. During her performance, she was a little nervous on stage (a little!), sang her last-minute choice tentatively, and actually forgot part of the lyrics (covering pretty well, considering.)
I knew she was embarassed and devastated--she's planning a career in the performing arts, and this was her last high school performance.
I took her aside last night to tell her something.
I told her it's easy to shine when everything goes perfectly. But it takes real guts to persevere when NOTHING is going right.
I told her the people who are successful in life aren't the ones who have never failed. They are the people who refuse to quit. They understand that things don't always go as planned, that people you are counting on can't show up sometimes, that we get sidelined, sidetracked and sideswiped constantly through life.
Morgan knows how to sing, she knows how to dance, she knows how to move with grace and conviction on stage. What she showed us last night was she also knows how to (literally) go on with the show.
People who can pick themselves up and keep going are the ones who cross the finish line. Her own determination shown like a star that night on stage.
And that's what this blog is about, ultimately. Sure, I've got some great tips and insights on this art biz. I've learned from some wonderful people, mentors and friends. I've learned some things the hard way, which is inevitable no matter how well you prepare.
But I think my best gift to you is, showing you what this looks like, this life as an artist.
This is what it looks like to make beautiful work. What it looks like to make it even better. This is what it looks like to talk about it, exhibit it, to market it, to sell it.
This is what it looks like to make work that touches people's hearts. To put down on paper WHY you make your work, so that you can understand your audience--and yourself--better.
This is also what it looks like to hit a slump, to hit valleys of self-doubt, to endure through a slow economy, a shifting demographic, a shake-up in traditional ways of marketing and selling the work.
This is how you constantly examine where your place is in the world, how you accept your nature--to create--and how you negotiate the demands of your day job or your family or your own health to get that artwork out into the world.
This is how you enjoy your successes, live in the moment, understand your goals so you can align your strategies with them.
This is how you persevere even when things go to pot.
This is how you go on with the show.
I've come to my art late in life, and I've been fierce about not walking away from it ever again. I've tried to give you a peek behind the curtains. That it's not always easy and wonderful--but it's always worthwhile and fulfulling. That mostly, achieving success--whether financial, professional, artistic or spiritual--is about not giving up. Not giving up the art you want to make, not giving up on your unique vision, not giving up no matter how long it takes or how hard it is to get there.
If you love it, if it brings you joy, and if you can succeed in connecting others with that joy--whether you give it to them, sell it to them, teach it to them, expose them to it--that is what is worthwhile.
It is this process I try to share in everything I write. It's WHY I write.
