If At First You Don't Succeed-

The following words by Ira Glass are often quoted and for good reason.  I first heard them in an art class and loved them.  

Glass said, "Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, and I really wish somebody had told this to me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there is this gap. For the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good. It’s not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not that good.
But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. A lot of people never get past that phase. They quit.
Everybody I know who does interesting, creative work went through years where they had really good taste and they could tell that what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short. Everybody goes through that.
And if you are just starting out or if you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you’re going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.
I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It takes awhile. It’s gonna take you a while. It’s normal to take a while. You just have to fight your way through that."

For years I thought I had little talent for art because what I was making wasn't anything like I saw in my head.  It was exhausting, actually.  I was driven to think, read and talk about art, but couldn't figure out how to make what I wanted to make.  It felt like everything I painted was worse than the last piece.  What a miserable time.  I began this blog to help me track progress, but got so discouraged that I couldn't bring myself to post.  When I did, I found myself hoping nobody was looking; the blog was for my own purposes, after all.  Those posts can still be seen, two of them are HERE and HERE.  

Old Patches, a marker to me that I'm getting somewhere

I noticed last week as I was working on 'Old Patches' that I knew what I wanted it to look like and how I was going to go about it.  I feel that I am finally to the point where I've put in the hours and work to begin to produce work that is visibly improving.  I know I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go, but I'm not in tears after finishing a piece anymore.  It has been a long struggle, but one that I am so glad I've made.  It was SO worth fighting my way through and so now I can see it is worth it to continue that fight.  And now, I'm off to work.  

So glad you stopped by.  Alice