The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

November 6Artistic Material

I think of few heroic actions, which cannot be traced to the artistical impulse. Those who do great deeds, do them from their innate sensitiveness to moral beauty. Such persons are not merely artists, they are also artistic material. Washington in some great crisis, Lawrence on the bloody deck of the Chesapeake, Mary Stuart at the block, Kossuth in captivity, and Mazzini in exile—all great rebels and innovators, exhibit the highest phases of the artist spirit. The painter, the sculptor, the poet, express heroic beauty better in description; but the others are heroic beauty, the best belov'd of art.

Walt Whitman—“Talk to an Art-Union” (1839)

Painters and sculptors often admit that they are uncertain about what they will create when they start; they just know that they have to find the truth and beauty in the canvas or hunk of marble. And that drives them as much as any notion of creating a work of art.

Really, I do not know whether my paintings are surrealist or not, but I do know that they are the frankest expression of myself.

Frida Kahlo

The depth of your drive to create and impact will most likely dictate how many hurdles you are willing to overcome. And there will be hurdles, as you find the truth and beauty, “frankest expression” of yourself, in your own canvas.

You might not know where you're headed. You don't need to know that just now; stay open to becoming “artistic material,” and you'll find a way to get to the right place.

Challenge ...