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Dear Artist,

So you’ve committed yourself to a life as an artist, now what? Will you struggle? Could aspects be hard? Are you going to feel frustrated? Of course you will. An artist’s life is not often a bunch of happy successes all lined up neatly in a row. The reality of being an artist is that instant success is not always the result.

 

Even when you do have a positive review this success can be fleeting. It is easy to feel the positive energy of the art enthusiast who likes your work and even buys an art piece. But this adrenaline shot in the heart can last a short time and even dissipate. For success to be more constant, joy needs to be experienced within each new art objective.

 

Artists create problems and then solve them. They see roadblocks figuring out new routes or ways to bypass the dead ends. The creative soul must produce work when there is no possible way to do so, in so much that artists see beauty in the ashes of the world’s lost interests.

 

Artists are different than hobbyists. The hobbyist doesn’t feel a constant inner burning to create. It’s a campfire verses an inferno. The hobbyist likes to sit around and roast marshmallows while the artist must burn each every scrap of wood to stay alive. The hobbyist can create here and there, putting things away without worrying about finishing them. The artist must be working or thinking about the creation most hours or else no joy is experienced without a constant fire.

 

It’s not always easy or even fun to be living within a massive creative inferno. Quite frankly, it gets a little too hot at times. Happily though, if art is your calling, it feels pretty darn good to create most of the time. If you are like me, then you will absolutely love the heat!

 

When it does come easy, feeling so right along the way, you are smoothing out the rough parts of being an artist. As a creator you will get in return from life what you put into it. Fan the fire and it will provide you warmth.

 

If the act of creation sustains you emotionally, then you are probably not a hobbyist but are more like Artist Amalia Pica. Pica shares her ideas on growing up in Patagonia under a dictatorship and how that pushes her into her own inferno-infusing joy into resistance in this video found HERE.

 

“What I have to say about the world cannot always be translated into an image.” Do you agree with Artist Amalia Pica's statement in this regard? Translation will be a factor we consider in our next letter.

 

When you find success in what you make, not in who likes it or how much it sells for, you will be the Fire Chief controlling the burn.

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Keep building the inferno,

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Uncle Salvador