Magnolia, Oil pastels By Barbara Mattio

Being a person who has the desire to create is a gift and a burden at times as well. There are some days you are in “the zone” and you are on fire with the desire, the need to create. To create what is bursting to be released from your soul. There are also days when you want to work and your creativity is stuck inside as if it were a geni in a bottle and the cork is solidly blocking the neck of the bottle.

It is important to work hard at developing your artistic voice and equally important to be patient with people who are struggling to find their own voice.

I feel that we can’t really understand all of our work. We create from a place inside which defies even our best attempts to understand it. It is almost impossible for others to understand our work. Many go into great detail describing what an artist meant with their poetry, print making, compositions, paintings or their dance. It is important to attempt to understand as we can grow as artists, but also important to remember in the back of our minds, that we probably have only a glimpse of where that art came from and what its etiology could have possibly been.

The good thing is that the more we use our artistic voice, the stronger and clearer it will become. It is important to remember, all great artists of any medium have worked long and hard before they felt they had created what was striving to burst out of their soul. Dancers, writers, poets, musicians, sculptors, painters, graphic artists,and actors put a lot of time and effort, sweat and tears into their craft before they are satisfied with the results.

Then there are the critics. Those self appointed judges who make a living tearing what you have created apart and then putting it together again in ways they feel is best. This is where you need to be true to your artistic voice. You can’t please all of the people all of the time; please your soul. Do what you were meant to do, even if critics don’t “get” it. You are an artist and this is a gift you were given. Be proud, nurture it. Work hard to accomplish what you know you must do and be fearless.

The more you use your artistic voice, the closer you will be to artistic purity. Remember to breathe, feel, love, live in joy. You are growing alongside your work..

My pond in Autumn Photo by Barbara Mattio