'Becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal...'

'But while talent - not to mention fate, luck and tragedy - all play their role in human destiny, they hardly rank as dependable tools for advancing your own art on a day-to-day basis. Here in the day-to-day world (which is, after all, the only one we live in), the job of getting on with your work turns upon making some basic assumptions about human nature, assumptions that place the power (and hence the responsibility) for your actions in your own hands. Some of these can be stated directly:

ARTMAKING INVOLVES SKILLS THAT CAN BE LEARNED. The conventional wisdom here is that while 'craft' can be taught, 'art' remains a magical gift bestowed only by the gods. Not so. In large measure becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive...'

David Bayles & Ted Orland, Art and Fear

I'm thinking about this today in relation to something that Paul Oertel says on his new CD, Reflections on Artistic Expression. My notes from listening to this say:

'The more specific you can become, the more the universal is revealed... 

(you get to) something that is real...not something that is limited in scope...'



There's something very important and complicated in the idea of a personal that does not make the observer/viewer/listener feel like a voyeur.

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