You are an Artist

Phot Credit: Public Domain via Pixabay

What art are you creating? What is your art? Is it art in the traditional sense, as in painting, or making music? Or is your art leadership? Perhaps it is cooking? Or maybe it is sales. Art is taking what you do, and making it the best it can be, by putting the very best you are now, into it.

If you are a nurse, you make art by being the best nurse you can be. You go the extra mile to serve. You do the very best you are capable of. You don’t try to be like someone else. Just the best nurse you can be. If you do what you do with no heart, it will never be art.

• Art requires heart! So however you make art, you put heart into it. You care about how you do it. Your art isn’t just what you do. It matters to you.
• Art inspires. It makes others want to make art too. It challenges them and inspires them to take what they do to the next level. Art lifts the soul.
• Art is beautiful. It makes you smile and laugh. It makes the day matter. It draws you out of your own little world, and causes you to take notice of the beautiful moments.
• Art is exceptional. It is exceptional because you cared and you put your very best into it. All you have to give today. No more, no less.
• Art is unique. Nobody makes art like you do. Nobody has the ideas you have. Nobody is you. Because you put all you have today into your art, your art is unique. No copies.
• Art touches people. You can never do that without heart. Maybe not like Handel’s Messiah touches people. But your art touches people. The smile, the fact that you care, the touch, the extra mile, it touches people. Art always does.
• Art is not perfect. The artist doesn’t live under the illusion that he will create perfect art. And yet he always strives to become better. But an artist must also accept that if he does what he does now with all he’s got, that is enough.

Becoming a master of your art takes a journey. It takes time to develop mastery in anything. But you can start creating art today. In fact, you must start creating art today. Becoming a master requires it. There are no exceptions. You must make art consistently in order to master art. And you must start before you are a great artist. If you don’t, you’ll never become great.

Becoming the master requires that you make art often, imperfectly, with all your heart. And then you do it again, and again. This time it’s better. Tomorrow it will be better yet. But the formula is the same. It takes all you have to give today. Nothing more, nothing less.

Nobody can tell you that you are not an artist. They don’t own the title. They can’t define your art. They are incapable of judging your art. They can tell you they don’t like it. But that is a matter of personal taste. It doesn’t have any relevance on the value of your art.

They can choose not to buy it. But that one person who is inspired by it, doesn’t care. Ultimately, if what you created inspired, was beautiful, was exceptional, was unique, and touched someone, it was true art. Don’t listen to the critic.

The tribe follows the artist. The artist just makes art. An artist is less concerned about the tribe or whether he has a tribe, than he is about what art he creates. So go create art! Passionately!

You have all you need today to make art right now. Not everything you will need in the future to be a master of your art, but all you need today. Go make art. With all your heart!