Painter, Joanne Mattera, has written an interesting piece where she compares her relationship to her art with a marriage. She asks if accountants or dentists have the same kind of relationship to their careers. I got a kick out of how she compares art to a not always supportive partner.
She does a really good job of expressing the difference between a working artist and a Sunday painter:
Whatever you call it, each artist’s relationship to art is a unique combination of give and take, pain and pleasure, or any number of other antithetical concepts jostling for supremacy. Some of these emotional clashes are generated by the creative act itself. Unlike Sunday painting, which I’m told is a relaxing and enjoyable hobby, when it’s your life’s work, every brush stroke is charged not only with paint but with esthetic decisions, intuitive flow running smack up against intractable deadlines for the next show.
I am not sure marriage is the correct metaphor for me. I think the relationship is more like religion, which has both a public and personal significance.
Government, politicians and institutions, all give lip service to it. People generally agree it is a good thing, but don’t go out of their way to make it a part of daily life. They mostly don’t even think about it, except for the blockbuster moments.
It takes many forms. There are many doctrines and dogmas. It has priests and shrines. It has martyrs. It has sects and fanatics that believe that what they declare art is the only art. All other art is false art. There are zealots and hypocrites.
Art demands sacrifices of money, time and lifestyle from the devoted. It takes discipline to practice it.
Wrongs have been committed in art’s name. It has been used for wrong purposes. People have twisted it and perverted it for their own ends; they use it to justify their deeds.
There are those who hate it and think that it is a drain on society, and a total waste of time.
In the end what really matters, and why art has always been a part of human history, is each individual’s relationship to it. What it brings me is incalculable good.
Through art lies my truest and best self. Art is something that I always have faith in, even in those times when I have no concrete reason to believe, when there is no money, no recognition, no support.
And, every painting is an offering.
(via SELLOUT)
I TOTALLY agree with you in regards to art being like religion. Every time I've had a period in my life with little/no art making, it's like I eventually get that gentle (and sometimes guilt-laden) tug back towards what makes me "tick".
Plus, my husband would never be so demanding for new pretty colors as my art supplies are!
I hope you are having a fabulous time with your doodles and new direction.
Posted by: Amy Stoner | February 07, 2008 at 09:26 AM