Judge Yourself By Your Own Graph

How often do we look at someone else's art work and think, "Why is their work so much better than mine?"

It's easy to do, right? When we look at someone else's work we see the end result of their work. We don't always see the struggles, the WORK that it took to get the peice created.

On the other hand, we see ALL of our struggles and ALL of our work...

However, it goes deeper than just, "The grass is greener..."

I believe the problem comes from one fundamental mistake: we see talent as a LINEAR equation.

I do X then I will get Y. If I work 10,000 hours I will finally be a master. If I put in two weeks of time then I'll be able to finally sculpt a face...

But this is a mistake.  It's a beginner's mistake, in fact, because anyone who has been doing the work for more than a few years knows that some days we have the talent and some days we just don't.

Some days we are a god. Some days we don't even want our work to exist.

I can remember a year long stretch where ever work I created made me want to apologize to mankind... from space... where I'd be safe...

I can remember a more recent time when I felt like humanity owed me undying loyalty for the beauty I was bringing into the world... then, of course, I woke up! :P

The creation of art is no more linear than creating life is. When my wife and I were pregnant we may have a rough timeline but no guarantees except that we are in for a wild and crazy ride!

When my wife and I had our first kid we discovered a whole world of folks with advice on how to have a kid. How to feed them the right food.  How to respond to their cry's the right way.  When to give them an IPhone. When to be hard on them and when to be soft.

However, at the end of the day when everyone else goes home it is just me, my wife and our beautiful kids and everyday we have to learn how to raise them our way. In the way that works for our life and our goals.

The creation of art is no different.  In my view, it is the creation of life.  It is an act of resistance, an act of defiance that we fling in the face of all the destructive forces in life... all the people who said no... all the doubt we had... all the sacrifices we had to make... all the politics of "doing the right thing"... 

If we are to be ready for this wild ride called ART then we need to accept that everyday our job is to learn the way that is right for us instead of looking to others to teach us whatever others might think is the "right" way.

Make sure to create something today!

-Ryan