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In general, to be taken as a serious artist, you
must be either extremely colorful in your lifestyle,
extremely talented in your chosen field of artistic
expression, own a small country, or be six feet under.
Even at that, these things cannot absolutely
guarantee you will ever be recognized as a meaningful
artistic soul. There is however one last element that
almost guarantees your success as an artist, its called
"Heart". Without heart your chances of success are severely
limited. You must live and breathe your dream. It keeps
you awake at night and wakes you in the wee hours of the
morning. It is unrelenting, disturbing, disruptive and
inconvenient. It takes your breath away and leaves you
craving for more.
Artistic expression must be painstakingly nurtured
over time with tolerance, love, hope and understanding.
It must be recognized early enough to encourage an artist
that is unsure and lacks confidence in their work. and
If you are the artist yourself, you should never ever
doubt your ability to be creative.
There are vast differences in artistic styles and
tastes, but every piece should be an extention of the
artists own heart. Your own heart. The heart that is
about to create a great piece of art.
Your art will find its place in this world through
your creativeness, and will find its market on the wings
of your enthusiasum and determination. Someone will always
see in your art, what you intended for them to see, and
usually much more.
My passion is photography, so I'll use it as an
example to illustrate my point.
Anyone who has children, can immediatly identify
with this image. It brings to the surface, the wandering
dreams of almost everyone on the planet at one time or
another, and the real life stories I've been told when
someone sees this image have at times surprised me but
always warmed my soul.
Her name is Nakowa, and she is to say the least, a
handful, a whirling ball of energy looking for her next
big adventure, always moving, and never ever still. As you
may have guessed, she also was always threatening to run
away from home, an adventure she had yet to muster the
courage to do. Well that day soon came, and she set
off down the street on her next big adventure. Now you have
to understand children to be able to cope with a child like
Nakowa, she was running away and that was that!, and any
attempt to stop her would only serve to encourage her to
actually carry out her threat. A little dose of reverse
child psychology was in order here. We gathered her up
kicking and screaming and brought her home (by now she had
made it out the door) and told her if she really wanted to
run away, she was going to need a few things to take with
her.
We made a little bundle on a stick and told her that
her clothes were in it and drove her out to the local train
station. I think by this time Nakowa was having some
second thoughts to say the least, but was too stubborn to
to let on. We told her that maybe she should eat something
before she left on her very.... long.... journey, as it may
be a while before she might be able to eat again. Well to
make a long story short, after all this getting ready stuff,
she was so tired of the idea of running away that she fell
asleep.
Then it hit me like a brick. I was standing in
exactly the same train station that my dad had taken me to
when I pulled the same bluff years earlier. If ever there
was a "Kodak Moment" this was it. We drove home, got a
ladder and my camera and drove back to the train station
to shoot this image. A little ice cream goes a long way
when you are taking pictures of children, especially when
there is some setting up to do.
To this day, over thirty years later, this image
continues to be my best selling print. It has heart in it...
"my heart"
