"Fears about artmaking fall into two families: fears about yourself, and fears about your reception by others." (page 23)
- Making art has always been scary to me. What I make always represents some part of me, whether I notice it or not. Seeing what the product is is like seeing yourself in the mirror after a hard days work. Having other people see your work is equally if not more terrifying, its like saying, here are the things i have spent all my time and energy on, please judge them. When people judge your work, its like they're judging you as a person.
"Hovering out there somewhere between cause and effect, between fears about self and fears about others, lie expectations." (page 34-35)
- Whenever I tell people how often I spend in the studio or that I am applying to art schools, I feel like they expect me to be some magnificent painter. I don't think of myself that way, and thats not why I paint. I do it for fun and because I love it. However, there are high expectations held for someone like me who paints so much and is planning to make a career out of it.
"The lesson here is that courting approval, even that of peers, puts a dangerous amount of power in the hands of the audience." (page 47)
- It is important to remember why we make art: because it makes us happy, it's something that we enjoy. For me, when I have a paintbrush in my hand nothing else matters. I don't do it for the success or approval of other people. However, its hard to remember this when you have people staring at your work. The reasons for making art should not be to please the audience, it should be because its something that you love to do.
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