I am in love with my fellow artists, every one of you.
No matter your chosen medium, crafters in paint, light, sound, words, stone, wood, metal..all, you are near and dear to my heart, and I thank you for your continued enrichment of my life. I really do. A day without art for me is a day most barren and desolate, not just as a creator of art, but as a receiver of the art of others.
You are a most courageous lot, daring to be there and communicate. Did you know that is the worst crime in the universe?, daring to just be there and communicate?
Yet you continue to improve and apply your skill and send your messages out like spacecraft into the void seeking exploration and destination, not always knowing what and where that will be. Bravo!
Courageous? Absolutely! - like Mark Twain said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.” So don’t you dare lose your nerve, don’t you dare! Stumble perhaps, but get up again, continue.
You are extremely important, even vital! When a culture fades, who and what is remembered and who shapes the thoughts and ideas of the new? Art and artists. What do we know and remember most of history and ancient cultures? The products of artists! The words, sculpture, paintings, music, crafts, and ideas created with such skill, beauty and impact. The images of a culture are those created by artists, and artists dream the dreams that science runs hard to catch up to and make a reality.
History has tried to make you crazy or just seem crazy and unimportant because you haven’t always agreed with “the norm” but choose instead to forge new territory, or because the products of your vision and labor don’t seem to be “necessary” to the living of life.
That is a lie. You are necessary, and you are some of the most valuable beings on the planet as far as I am concerned. Art has brought hope to and seen many individuals through the toughest of times. Some individuals are threatened by artists because you have the power to influence ideas, vision, direction, and inspire and capture men’s souls. Artists and art can completely alter lives for better, or worse- you choose. Really, what those who try to make less of you are trying to do is enslave you knowing you wield such power- hoping they will somehow get that power for their own (usually not good) use.
You are also ambassadors from one culture to another which is a very powerful thing indeed. You and your art can cut right through the barriers of customs, language, religion, and location and appeal directly to the essence of one being to another.
But perhaps you already know this, but in case you don’t…
Yes, you are very powerful, so never disparage your own power. You have the power to make someone ecstatic or plummet them into despair. You make people smile, laugh, weep, hope, and believe in their own power and worth faster than any other group I know. You command people’s attention and emotions and take them to places they never dreamed of or thought possible! I know you do for me.
So lift each other up and don’t invalidate yourselves. There’s enough invalidation available out there already should we choose to listen and agree to it. Creating art can be a solitary activity, alone in our studios facing the next blank canvas, or sitting at the piano wrestling with notes, or facing a blank page and trying to create just the right impact with your words, origination can be an awfully lonely, solitary activity and must to a large part remain so at that stage. Art is about making our own, individual communication after all. Even a director is there to coordinate the individual efforts of the actors to result in one overall single communication.
However, in making our art known, and our community known, I believe we can be even more powerful as a group, or working in groups, and thus I work to find ways to enhance and broaden that aspect of our lives because I do believe in the incredible value of art and artists to all of mankind.
Meanwhile dear artist, know this:
I see you or hear you and know that you are there.
I see or hear your work and I appreciate what you do.
You and your work are very worthwhile to me and I am honored to know you and call you friend and fellow artist.
You greatly enhance, and enrich my life, and I am grateful to you for that.
Please continue....
Michele "Mikala" Ross
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