“The best thing you can do is make art you care about – and lots of it!”(p.6)
I liked this chapter of the book, and the beginning of it makes me want to read the rest of the book. These few pages trying to tell us that someone must be an artist to believe in themselves and accept how much they have done regarding their art practice. The author shows us the importance of believing in yourself, putting effort and hard work into your pieces, and accepting the level of artist that you are at now.
One thing that stuck with me was that he mentioned how talent does not play as big of a role for an artist as we think. Still, it is rather a bonus inherited by chance, but what makes a good artist is his hard work, effort, expression, and determination. This is something I fully stand for, as I think many people give up at the beginning of their creative journeys because they do not “have what it takes to be an artist,” what they tend to misunderstand is that this “it” is effort, patience and lots of hard work, it’s the journey the artist goes on, how he progresses his work and his practice.
This chapter is a good way to start this book called “Art and Fear,” I have felt before that I do not have what it takes because I would see people around me, around my age, sometimes even way younger, that I deemed more talented than me. But art is an outlet, and I have seen my progression in my techniques and pieces after not giving up and continuing the hard work. I think this applies not only to art but to anything someone would want to pursue; Do you get a love for football but never played? Apply this strategy. Do you want to code websites but don’t even know how to code? Apply this strategy. Do you have any other interests you want to pursue but think it is too late, or you are not talented enough? Apply this strategy.