"Sometimes we allow too much importance to the opinion of others in some areas that they have no rights to interfere. ... Being an artist is a call, as much as being a lawyer or a doctor... I believe it is a vocation. I am much more afraid of not being what I want, or not wanting what I am, than not pleasing anyone with their conception of life... You know why? I did it for too long. It is very destroying. It took me over 30 years to win over my fear of not being appreciated for who I am ... I learned to love and accept myself... even if it is not always the jackpot... Because if I had changed things in me much longer to please others, I would have ended up hating myself even more for being their toy." --Julie-Anne
"I feel guilty when I'm not painting and ... also... because I'm doing something that I love. I think a lot of it has to do with how we were brought up too. I think that for a lot of us, our parents didn't encourage art as a profession but only as a hobby ... it was the mentality then ...it's something that we have to overcome. I just wonder how many really talented people never get to realize their dreams because of this attitude and end up living miserably. It's very sad. I'm glad that creativity is encouraged in our schools today and that we have learned, as parents to nurture self-esteem in our children. I'm also glad that we have found something that we love in our lifetime. Just the other day an elderly woman who I was talking to about my art told me that her son had always wanted to paint when he was young (he's dead at 40 from a drug overdose) and that she told him that he couldn't do that and that he had to get a real job. Maybe that's why he had such an unhappy life and an early death This lady is in her late seventies and when I showed her my art ...she said to me. 'That's nice but you can't make a living doing that.' At that moment, I felt what her son must have felt when he told her that's what he wanted to do with his life many years ago. She didn't see anything wrong with her statement. She was just saying what she thought to be true. Luckily, I was able to shake it off because I know darned well that if you work really hard, you can make it happen."-- Ruthie
"I feel no guilt about being an artist. When I realize the impact of the arts on society it makes me feel a bit noble. Besides.....in a month I will be 60! (How that happened I don't know....some weird time machine thing, I guess.) But, I've paid my dues. I gave up going to art school when my parents objected to it if I had any plans to marry. Which I did. So at not-quite-21 I married, moved away, moved many many times when my husband was transferred (setting up a home and acclimatizing the three children each and every time). I've been supportive of everyone who needed it in all those years, but dammit ... .now it's my turn. Fortunately, they agree. And it's a high calling ... in my opinion." Karen
"My grade 9 teacher told me I should be an artist as a career; I wasn't a great drawer but I had a unique imagination. But I got into drugs and booze when I was 12 and a life of crime. When I was 16 a cop got me a job and I turned my life around, always thinking what my grade 9 teacher said. I went to some night school classes when I was in my late 30s and got back into it. I was thinking of becoming a tatto artist so I studied Chinese brush painting and some drawing classes. I quit my job as a scale tech, rented a warehouse and was going open a gallery but three weeks before opening a car turned in front of me at a intersection while I was doing about 60km an hour on my Harley, almost killing me. While I was in the hospital a friend ask me to do an abstract painting for him, so I designed my first abstract and used acrylic paint for the first time. It took me three years to recover and I painted many abstracts. I went into debt for another year-and-a-half trying to do it for a living. I bought a 44 inch inkjet to make my own prints and gave it my best shot. I maxed out my credit and had to go back to work, but I gave it my best shot. All because I felt guilty about not being an artist." --Swtpeaj
"I relate to what George Bernard Shaw says, it's almost as if I don't have a choice but being an artist. He said: Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. -- Victor
