Rilke said: "Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life." (http://www.sfgoth.com/~immanis/rilke/letter1.html)
L'Engle said that creating art is incarnational, that a work of art comes to us and we have the choice to be obedient to it and give it life or to be disobedient and refuse to deliver it. (Walking on Water, Reflections on Faith and Art, Madeline L'Engle http://www.madeleinelengle.com/books/walkingonwater.htm)
Both authors describe something that comes from within but takes on it's own existence.
It is a self-centered act to make art. You have to plunk away every day to keep your skills. You have to zealously carve out time to nourish your mental and spiritual health. Then you have to dig deeply inside to find what most matters to you and is worth getting out of you.
Hasn't someone already done it better or bigger than I ever could? What legitimate claim do I have for creating art? Does originality have as much importance as honesty and integrity? Integrity of materials, honesty of emotion? What's the good of my little pebble at the foot of the huge mountain of the world's art?
I just KNOW that I am compelled to paint and to not do so is dishonesty and deceit. To not do so is to not be fully me.
Leave all the notions of fame and fortune to others. To paint is to live. Live my work and love my life.
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