Five Things To Remember As An Artist

Number 4 resonates with me the most. In this day and age where everything is immediate and accessible practically 24/7, having patience is becoming a lost virtue. I find myself feeling as though I need to be a machine to keep up, to compete in this “instant gratification” world. People can easily forget about you if you’re not cranking out work at the same speed as pushing a button. But among my own personal beliefs, I feel that the creative spirit comes from Nature and if you’ve ever paid any attention to Nature, She has never been in a rush to do anything. The only things that tend to happen quickly are disasters and destruction but creation takes time and effort. We can get fooled into believing in “over night” success because the media likes to highlight these anomalies but often such successes are 7, 10, 15 and sometimes 20 years in the making. Anything worth any true value or beauty takes time to create. So if you’re like me, keep something like this list around to remind yourself to have patience with yourself and your craft. Nothing great was ever built in a day.