To Be An Artist

I was looking through my handouts from the Awakening Your Creative Vision workshop and found this writing.  I thought I would share it as we are all artists whether we write, sing, draw, paint, photograph….I hope it brings some inspiration to all of you.

To be an artist, it is not necessary to make one’s living from one’s creations.  Nor is it necessary to have pieces hanging in museums or published in books or praised by critics.  What IS necessary is to live with your eyes wide open.  To breathe in the colors of mountain and sky, cityscape and landscape; to know the sound of leaves rustling, the smell of snow, the texture of bark.  It is necessary to rub our hands all over life, to sing when we get to the edge of the cliff.  To be an artist is to notice every glorious and tragic thing.  To laugh and cry freely.  To collect experiences and shape them into forms that other people might recognize.  It is not to whine about not having time, but to be creative with every moment – to create joy where we are, to dress colorfully, to tell jokes.

We are all searching for sustenance.  We are all hungry for images, music, films, novels, poems and plays that wrestle with life’s complexities, fuel our passions and reawaken our drowsy imaginations.  And as we participate in art by making it and by appreciating what others make, we are participating in the process of creating our culture.  Let us take on that role of co-creators with the flair and enthusiasm of true artists.  Let’s take it upon ourselves to reimagine our world and reinvent it in a way that honors this brief but precious experience we’re sharing.  Let’s support the artists whose work inspires us and do something with our imagination that adds light and truth to the world.  As artists of life, we can heal ourselves, one another, our planet – one picture, one poem, one song, one act of kindness at a time.

-Author Unknown