Reflections- 2 years on....

I have been sculpting for over 5 years now but only 2 years as a professional artist.

There are no manuals on how to become an artist. Before becoming an artist, I used to work in IT for over 15 years and although you always decide your own career, there is always along the line someone to give you advices if they feel you are going the wrong way or doing any mistakes. I remember those famous yearly reviews at work ( they used to drive me mad!) where your boss used to tell you the good and bad points about you, what you needed to improve and work on, and what training you required... There is nothing of such for artists, you have to think it for yourself with nobody asking you for it. 

Developing techniques, understanding materials and understanding anatomy are important tools to hep artists expressing their vision and develop their identity. To find the right technique or material to communicate our vision accurately is a journey of experimentations, discoveries and can be difficult. 

Yesterday I was visiting one of the Top UK artist ( who does the most amazing contemporary work!) and learned about new materials to use so I am so exiting to apply it to some of my sketches.  

latest sketches

As difficult it can be to learn new techniques, they can be taught and can be learned and it is probably the easiest part of the journey of an artist.

          Picasso ”I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.”

Finding your vision and your identity is a much harder task. Finding your message, that something special that defines you  can not be taught!  We are alone in this part of the journey and I think this is probably the hardest part of all. Many artists spend so much time developing their techniques to perfection that they forgot an important element that defines us as artists.

Abstract american painters Richard Diebenkorn said, “For every artist that has something worthwhile to say but lacks the technical ability to communicate his idea perfectly, there are a thousand artists with all the technique in the world and nothing to say”

I am sure that there are a lot of different interpretation of Richard Diebenkorn quote but for me this sentence gives me hope to becoming a good  artist one day.....