a microcosm of a life

Through art, a painter can make the ordinary come alive. As Zen students, we try to bring this kind of relevance into each moment of our lives, into this one moment that contains all moments. In this way, we allow the ordinary to enliven us. Sometimes this is successful, sometimes not, but the work itself goes on. Persistence is one of the major virtues in both the artist and the unenlightened…….Gary Thorp

as artists, we don’t even want to acknowledge such potentialites…with those, come the pit of failure as well…..there is a moment, every day in making art, when we choose to keep at it…the myth of our eventualites is excruciating….

what art-making is…..everything that redefines what art isn’t…

…..it’s about the making of it….

If making art gives substance to your sense of self, the corresponding fear is that you’re not up to the task- that you’re not a real artist, or not a good artist, or have nothing to say. Making art can feel dangerous & revealing. Making art is dangerous & revealing. Making art precipitates self-doubt, stirring deep waters that lay between what you know you should be & what you fear you might be. The more common obstacle to achieving the correspondence between imagination & execution is not undisciplined execution, but undisciplined imagination. It’s altogether too seductive to approach your proposed work believing your materials to be more malleable than they really are, your ideas more compelling, your execution more refined. Most artists don’t dream about making great art- they dream about having made great art. All you can work on today is directly in front of you. Your job is to develop an imagination of the possible…….David Bayles & Ted Orland