Let me paint you a picture.

Long afternoons sipping Latte in the cafe. Private moments in your huge studio pondering your next brush stroke. Glamorous gallery openings. Champagne and Press. A house in Tuscany, or a New YorkPenthouse. World wide fame and recognition. Books with your name as the title in every art section of every bookshop.

No wonder “being an artist” is in the top of every child’s list of things they want to be when they grow up.

Let me paint you another,

A life of pain, scorn and poverty.

These are the two most frequent pictures people have in their minds when they hear the word, Artist. With the majority choosing the second picture. The word has been tainted, and over used. It’s been mocked and over glorified, and has left everyone confused.

The truth is, both pictures are rare extremes. And most of us probably live comfortably in the middle. Living a dream. Some of us have jobs. And some of us make  a decent living from our art. I’m quite sure you have tasted a bit of both sides of the Artist life.

There’s that word again. Sometimes it can be a burden as much as it is a joy. Let me propose a new word: art-maker. It takes the attention off us, and puts it on the art. Suddenly we’re free from the burdens of that other ‘A’ word.

Let’s paint a new picture. And if you like, you can paint in that New York Penthouse, but please remember not to leave out the long afternoons sipping Latte.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Buy, Create, Learn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.