Saltines, napkins, and passion

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SterlingKato's avatar
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Art is a very fickle career, one most people tend to avoid at all costs but desire to do all the same. We all want to be an artist for a living until we realise that unless you're really good or somehow make it in some high end company you're going to wind up sucking Saltines while you doodle on napkins because you can afford anything else. It's a passion and a burden. It's like having a child. You wake up one day and find out you have this wonderful gift inside of you and you nourish it, love it, and engulf it in as much joy as you can until it is born and blossoms. Other people notice and for a while you're the world to them. This gift and talent you have; that you've worked so hard for is for a time the meaning of life. People praise it, adore it, and want to hold it forever. 
Then one day you find people don't care anymore. It's grown old, worn, and 'been there, done that'. The light fades and the luster flakes away to reveal the emptiness under it all. 

You get so lost in the praise and passion that you can sometimes lose the reason you harnessed this gift and talent, why you bothered to pursue it. Suddenly when no one notices anymore it feels meaningless, hollow, and heavier than ever. The praise turns to judgement, the admiration turns to ignoring, and the smiling faces are now backs turned to you. 
You stare into the eyes of this gift and it looks back at you with the same look it always has; wonderment and bewilderment. This talent and gift has never been about the praise or admiration, it's always been 'you'. Your hands created it, your heart held it, and your mind pursued it. In the end when you break down you pick up the pen and create. With tears in your eyes and pain in your hands you create. This joy, happiness, fulfillment, and adoration that you once relied on is gone and all that is left is you and the canvas -- blank and unfazed. 
You pick up the pen, wipe your nose with the napkin, stuff a Saltine in your mouth and you create because this is why you do it. The praise has not power over you anymore, only the passion. As you grip the pen tighter you draw the line in the sand between a pursuit of acceptance and the resistance to be reigned. 

You create and you hate it but you keep going because this is what you do. 
Soon eyes peer in from behind you and the backs turn to face the creation again and soon praise pours in once more but you're deafened by the silence in your heart. 
The only eyes that stare back at your are the eyes of your gift, this talent you harnessed and pulled from the ashes of your own fiery end. It's like staring into a mirror as the lines form the face of imagination and despite all the commotion around you you are closed into a bubble of personal comfort. 
It was never about the praise or accolades. 
You step back from the canvas and stare into the face of the imagination you created and it stares back with the look of wonderment and bewilderment once more, an expression never changing for art is never completely finished. The look of wonderment is there as a means to entice a desire to move on and bewilderment to tempt the senses to keep pursuing something more. 
The passion drives the pursuit of creation, not the need to acceptance or acknowledgement. People see passion and then understand it as it's a raw and deep feeling people know all too well. Some people choose not to pursue their passion in fear of failure while others pursue failure in hopes of finding success in trying harder. 
Art is failure without bounds but it is also success without limits. Don't let those around you dictate your passion based on how much they like it.


Do it for you. 

© 2017 - 2024 SterlingKato
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dustinkinsella's avatar
Does your artwork watch you pee because it can't stand to be alone for 5 seconds?