by margot olivetti

Created on: January 24, 2009

As noble as art would like to portray itself to be, a real artist knows that there is no amount of press releases and exhibitions can be as satisfying as being proud of one's work. The internal gratification of creating and having created, to finally silence this gnawing need to make, is the real payment that artists receive. This is art's primary difference with other professions such as management and business. There is an inner pleasure that you are striving for. One does not create to get rave reviews, or so that he or she may be famous. Instead, one creates because he or she has something to create, because he or she is urged by the fires one's passions. The other professions, on the other hand, have other goals in mind, like money. In these terms, artists can be conceived as self-ish. However, paradoxically, what they are doing is something to be shared at the same time.

"If the person himself or herself does not accept his or her work wholeheartedly, then who else will?" is the best way to phrase it. The importance comes in the very process of making and also in the total growth of the person as an artist. Acceptance of one's art is very very critical as it will dictate what one's future self will be (to be or not to be an artist) and it all starts with trying out one's hand in art. This becomes the very fuel of practicing, to reach that point when there is no other way aside from fully accepting one's work. In our heads, a person has his own criteria of what he considers to be art and otherwise. Unless these criteria are pleased, it will always be hard to accept the work at hand and to be striving for that perfection in our head, we go on creating and creating and creating. But on more realistic terms, one has to face the idea that if the person creating does not in the very beginning accept that scribble that he or she started with, there is no motivation either to create some more. Sure in the future, in looking back, we will be ashamed of what we did, but these were precisely the necessary steps that were needed to be done to be able to reach the point of being where we are at the moment. This primary acceptance is not on the lines of letting it be put in an exhibition but more of an internal acceptance that 'I am not yet good, but I will try some more because this is what I want to do.' The predicament often arises with this, people desire to be great immediately that they forget to enjoy the moment of creating. So, since they are of course not yet as great as Boticelli or Picasso, they give up, killing whatever probability they might have in the arts.

There is no one way to phrase how to accept one's work. It is simply an internal decision. Because before it can be satisfying to watch people at awe of one's work, one has to be the audience that applauds it.

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