Thursday’s blog on Art and Fear generated some good responses, including a question from Joe Black. Joe is a writer, a columnist, and a part time painter. He tells me he came across this blog sometime last year and signed on.<\/p>\n
I’ve copied and pasted his comment at left. If I’m interpreting it correctly, he’s not interested in selling art but rather in finding his highest self\u00a0(art-wise). He keeps the best and destroys (paints over) the lesser. He asks for my response, and from a Christian perspective.<\/p>\n
The latter I’ll not touch. Who knows what the Master might say; Jesus’s answers so often unsettling and piercing into the motives of the heart. It seems to me Joe’s motives are plenty pure . . . not willing to release substandard work for any price, nor for that matter, his best work either. He paints for joy, and is rewarded about once in four.<\/p>\n
Are the rest of them joy too, in the pursuit? We’d have to ask him.<\/p>\n
There is certainly a chance that his success ratio will grow. Good art comes from making lots of art<\/span>.<\/p>\n Here’s another quote from the book,\u00a0Art and Fear:<\/em><\/p>\n The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars. Even the failed pieces are essential. The point is that you learn how to make your work by making your work, and a great many of the pieces you make along the way will never stand as finished art.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The principle is the same, whatever our pursuit.<\/p>\n As far as wanting to keep your best pieces, I understand . . . but in time you may be willing to let them go (if there’s reason enough), as our own sense of “best” changes and grows.<\/p>\n Meantime, more power to you Joe.<\/p>\n By the way, I feel somewhat the same about these blog posts. Those I let pass I do hope reflect the inner me. The rest, I paint over.<\/p>\n But the whole process is a joy.<\/p>\n Hope you’re all experiencing that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n ____________________ Our best work comes from good work, and good work comes from a lot of work . . . <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6162"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6190,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6162\/revisions\/6190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n* \u00a0Art and Fear, Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking<\/em>, David Bayles and Ted Orland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"