A spiritual approach to progress in creativity.

For artists, chasing riches leads only to stagnation & misery. You will make a living from your work only if that is not your goal. Yet it is overly simplistic to say, "Just make your art, and you will lead a useful & contented life", the key is to not do it blindly. When you realize that your artistic gifts were not given to you, (you did not earn them, this is Grace), you begin to sense that your gifts and what they permit you to create were meant for your fellows. Therefore it is by listening to them that your sustainable path forward will be revealed. Pay attention to the reactions to what you make. Let those instinctive positive reactions that you observe create your touchstones as an artist. Those core elements that you will joyful return to over and over. Do not fear that this will make your work stale and never evolving, being self aware and honest will solve that easily.

You are not who you were the last time you put needle to cloth or brush to canvas. You can not stop yourself from growing and changing. What roots artists too firmly in their own pasts is fear of moving beyond something that once worked well. If you fully understand those artistic desires you need to express, those ideas that compel you like a fetishist back to them over and over you will be fine. They are your roots, they are what make you, you. You are the only you, you are essentially unique. It is only when you permit yourself to be driven by doubt and buffeted by the winds of opinion and trends that you become lost."Shoemaker, stick to thy last."