My Dear friends,
Thank you for putting up with my dabbling commitment to write and share learn with you all, but to those of you who keep following, keep checking back, and keep reading- THANK YOU. With all my heart, thank you.
As many of you know, I am a painter and photographer. With that comes many struggles- why did you paint that? Why is your art priced the way it is? Why don’t you just sell prints of everything? Why don’t you paint more of this or less of that? And the age old, couldn’t a 5 year old do that? They don’t see the hours of toil, the dozens of white washed “failed” canvases, or the years or schooling, research and practice. But once a piece is complete, it is accessible, easy to interact with (thanks to social media), and fairly convenient for friends and family to be visibly supportive of.
One of my closest friends is a writer. Now, I have told her on many occasions how envious I am of her skill set, her creative thinking, and her agile mind. But as writer, she has her own set of struggles, not the least of which is feeling like after all this time and effort, no one really cares. Who has time to sit down and read a whole novel, or her in case FIFTEEN brilliantly thought out novels, just to let your friend know that you believe in their work.
To all friends, fans, and family members of any creative- This knowledge, the knowledge that you believe in them, support them AND enjoyed the fruits of their labor… it is invaluable.
To all creatives-If you feel as if you are alone in this endeavor, I assure you that you are not. Here is an excerpt from my friends latest blog posting entitled, On Feeling Unsupported…
“I think we all know that feeling, what it is to slave over something so laboriously and go from feeling so accomplished to being so rejected in such a brief amount of time. It’s not a feeling I relish, but I do think it’s part of the process.”
I encourage you all to keep writing, keep painting, keep playing, no matter what your passion, don’t let up. But also, don’t go it alone. Find another person, whether it be a friend or a peer and be their constant support. It doesn’t have to be in your own field or medium- in fact, I LOVE the things I learn when I am in mutual support with someone that I know very little about their particular artistic process. All throughout history, the evolution of art, writing, culture, society, politics… it was all fluid, co-mingled, and intertwined. You cannot see the movement and changing of one without the eventual or sometimes instant evolution of another. I truly believe that if you invest significant and genuine time into someone’s passion, you will see a return and then some on that effort. That mutual support will carry you further as an artist than you could ever make it alone.
Annie M 