“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.” Erma Bombeck
To help with my own dilemma of my past blog, after a lot of pondering, I managed to come to some understanding, which doesn’t mean will not change as my awareness does. So roughly, I divide the stages of creating…that is being an Artist.
So the first stage is the creating itself. If one is creating out of enjoyment, out of need of that intimate moment with self, self- inquiry and expression, then one is doing just that. There is nothing wrong in leaving it there, just for the experience and keeping the artwork as a reminder of it, is one an Artist then?
The second is being the critic, looking at your work with somebody else’s eyes. A challenging, yet still creative stage. Now you are the viewer and you are using your sense of aesthetics and knowledge to analyze the validity of the expression. Sometimes one discovers things that one hasn’t even seen while creating.
And the third is the sharing aspect of it, through shows, Internet, galleries…which entails getting rewarded for it….selling it. Exposing something very personal. As in my previous blog, this stage is the totally opposite of the first. It seems to go against the grain of creating, but I realized that the Artist has to go through these three stages (and many other finer nuances of it) to be one.
Yes it takes a lot of courage to be an Artist.