What does strength mean to you?
From where do you draw your strength and in what ways do you consider yourself to be strong?
Not so long ago, I would have told you that my strength was in my independence and my singularity. However, as I dove deeper into my creative recovery, I discovered that the artist within me didn’t have a sense of strength within herself at all.
It is much harder, I discovered, to continue with your art, when there is no encouragement from those around you. And how very much more difficult it is to pursue your creative endeavours when those around you scoff or criticize your stuff.
As artists we will always have to learn to deal with rejections, lack of enthusiasm and perhaps even outright ridicule of our work. Without a sense of strength within ourselves, we risk being crushed and damaged by these hurts.
It’s crucial to develop a resilience to rejection, I have learned. And with that, find the courage to stay committed to your work. By all means, grieve the hurts, but then get up again and paint, get up and write, or sing. Just do the thing that your creative soul feels it must do to be alive.
For the artist, seven days without painting makes one weak.
(Nona Stephens)
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know where you’re coming from honey…. in the end it hurts more not to do what you do, than to defer to those who don’t understand.
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