Setting goals and Making it happen.

I use to think that my art needed to look like somebody else's art to be real art.

I still love copying well-known artist to see if I can achieve certain effects and I love to wonder as I paint what they were thinking as they made the choices they did.

But then, maybe only this year, I began to accept that my art never looked like their art even if I tried my hardest. That it always had my "look" to it. And so I said to myself, "SO WHAT!"

Now I'm learning to paint and draw the things I like to see and have some compassion for my own art. To let it be what it is. To heck with what others see. It is my intuition or nothing. If my art never makes it then nobody ever connected to what I see and feel on the canvas or the paper but I did, and I matter. But others have connected already. I've recently sold paintings to complete strangers (rather than people who have an emotional connection to me as the artist). Those wonderful buyers connected with nothing more than the image, the art that was my own unique vision. It is very validating and humbling at the same time. And encouraging that I'm on the right track.

I think I will continue to trust my instincts. I've read that it takes 10 years or 10,000 hours to be truly proficient and successful at something. I'm half-way there. I know that in 5 more years, I'm going to be twice as good if I keep studying and practicing my art.
No one but me can hinder my future success as an artist. I have big goals. I want a piece of my art to hang in a museum. I want to win some major art shows. I want to sell paintings on a regular basis. I want to paint until the last day of my life.  I want to make beautiful, interesting, unusual art that makes me excited to share it with the world. Now I've stated it and it's out there. And I'm willing to work for it.

It's mine, people. On my terms.

Woods of Wonder