I get up super early these days and ride my bicycle to the studio. This time of year it is quite cold and almost dark when I start. There are not too many people up yet and sometimes I feel I shouldn’t be either. The cars that speedily pass me this early are most likely business people commuting into San Francisco.
My doubts about why I am pedaling so early begin to fade as I turn off the busy road onto a stretch of bike path that goes along a wetland. The sun is coming up now and the water begins to shimmer. The egrets, gulls, stilts and pelicans are everywhere. The din of the traffic is gone. This path is mostly empty. In many ways this reminds me of what it is like to be an artist.
It is the path less taken.
Gratitude is too small a word to describe how fortunate I feel to be an artist. On this particularly beautiful morning there are so many reasons why.
Here are just a few.
I love that making Art teaches me about Life.
I love when you mix cadmium yellow light with phthalo green it feels like you’re standing in a tropical rainforest.
I love I don’t know where I am going but somehow I know when I am getting there.
I love that my favorite scraping tool was originally used by a dentist.
I love that making Art is about the exceptions instead of the rules.
I love that there are people in the world who understand and desire what I make.
I love that I can have any colors I desire.
I love that I have laughed out loud when making Art.
I love that sometimes I have cried.
I love that when I make my Art, I always hold on so tightly but when I am done, I have to let it go.
I love that artists are a tribe.
I love that a bad day can turn into a great day when you make Art you love.
Sometimes I pass another cyclist coming the other way on this beautiful stretch of bike path. Maybe it is because there are not many people on this path, or perhaps because they are feeling as I do, we always nod to each other. Sometimes it is just a small wave or a smile, but there almost always is a mutual acknowledgment.
There are just two of us here, moving through this extraordinary place at the same time. The sun is rising, everything is turning golden, there are birds everywhere and, not unlike the journey of an artist, for some miraculous reason most everybody else went the other way.
I love that too.
Why do you love being an artist?
57 Comments
Hi! I’m
Nicholas Wilton
the founder of Art2Life.
With over 20 years experience as a working artist and educator, I’ve developed a systematic approach that brings authenticity, spontaneity and joy back into the creative process.
Join me and artists from all over the world in our Free Art2Life Artists Facebook Group or learn more here about Art2Life.
Thank you, Nick. I really needed this today. You are wonderful for sharing this.
Thank you for your comment back- It means a lot to me that people read it and resonate…
Lots of food for thought, exposure to creative people like you are the reason I love art. It is a growing experience in so many ways. Thanks again for sharing!
Because I get to express myself when a lot of my life has been about listening <3
Lovely. Thank you.
I love being an artist because art heals me from the pain of my past.
I love that you love art enough to share with the rest of us!!
Part of why I love being an artist, is that I live life on my terms
Lovely. Thank you.
Hey @jef@jeffkahn:disqus Nice hat!
Thanks! It is from http://www.blessingbasket.org
By purchasing hand woven Blessing Baskets® products, you empower families around the world not just to exist, but to thrive. Their exclusive Prosperity Wage® model ensures artisans receive at least 2.5 times fair trade for their handicraft.
I was riding right along with you and nodding yes to all your sentiments. Thank you for your always inspirational and helpful words.
And I love when someone says to me ” I love your art” Yes!!!
Thank you Nick – you are a true inspiration!
I love it because it is the only place I can be me.
I love art, although I’m not quite able to say that I love being an artist–yet. But your description of seeing the other cyclist on the path reminded me of a similar experience I had when hiking in the woods early one morning; I was so used to being the only person on the path that one day, when I saw a figure up ahead, my first reaction was to wonder how it was possible to see myself walking from the opposite direction. Maybe it’s “flights of fancy” like these that make me grateful to be an artist . . .
It is the path less taken. I decide long ago I had to follow that path, at least as much as I could. I painted that road a long time ago for my wife on a cover of a journal I gave her. Then we also followed that road again when we left Seattle on our sailboat and traveled down to the Panama Canal and then up the Caribbean to Texas. All the things you listed pretty well sum it up when you travel that road or path. We always need to remember why we have decided to take that road. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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Terry, love hearing of your adventures….It sounds wonderful…
I love being an artist as it takes me places I’ve never been, both in the world and on the canvas. It’s the most challenging and the most rewarding activity I can imagine. I love taking the bus across town to my studio and quietly observing the complex faces of my fellow passengers. I love seeing the changing colours of the seasons and know that I can store them in my memory. I love that art is the only thing I’m good at and the only thing I can do.
I love being an artist because that is who i am at my core. Life might be easier financially for me doing something else but i would not be truly alive…. I would not be able to live the life i am so loving.
Yes HB….thanks for this – I am the same way…
That was SO beautiful Nick,…I felt like I was there with you on your morning ride. I love being an artist for all the same reasons. And the stillness. The quiet in the studio. The stillness before I start, and within me while I am working, that connects me to something so very much bigger than myself. It fills my heart to overflowing,…and occasionally yes, I do cry.
Thanks Caroline….
Beautiful post Nick. I love being able to make something out of nothing. It’s like magic and I love thinking about the force behind that magic. Like I’m a conduit for something bigger than myself. I love that I make the best art when I’m not thinking so hard and I love that making art feels like home. I have also laughed out loud and cried and I love that those emotions find their way onto a canvas by me just simply doing.
Thanks @@marignygoodyear:disqus !
Thanks for this today, sometimes a nod from a fellow traveller is just what we needed
Thank you for this. I don’t always verbalize why I love being an artist and this just solidified it….. it brought tears to my eyes knowing that I’m part of this tribe.
When I am working on my art I often slip into an altered state of awareness where the passing of time fades and I am one with the what I am doing and when I think 20 minutes has passed it is more like 2 hours.
Beautiful. I have the good fortune of owning two of your pieces and love that they are the product of such a grateful and talented artist.
Hey @ginger@gingerbrucker:disqus thanks for supporting my art –I really appreciate it! Which ones do you own?
I have Birdsong and Desert Bloom. Love them.
So beautifully stated. A small subset of the population really understands this. Your words ring so true. Thank you.
I love when I have an idea for a painting, not sure if it will work or
not, but then it turns out to be beautiful — and something I made.
It’s exciting to know I can make something beautiful.
I love it!… Making art sometimes feels magical.
There was a time that I would say to my students. Making art gives you the most freedom you will ever experience because in your art you can go anywhere you want to. Even when you travel you will get so much more out of any trip if you love art. Today, marketing my art seems to drag me down but I know the feeling of which you speak so well Nicolas and it makes me feel that I am getting closer to that feeling again before I worried about selling my work. When people buy your art because they love it, that makes a huge difference to how your feel. I do know that I cannot not make art and be happy.
Great to remember the aspects of art that energizes you… I totally relate to getting sidetracked sometimes from the parts that can drag you down..You have to be super mindful of what you focus on…
I Just want to share that I LOVE being an artist and LOVE riding my bike too! They completely compliment one another. I like the letting go and feeling free aspects of both of them. It’s an adventure with my imagination and mother nature.
I LOVED reading this post.
Thanks!
Awesome Anne….I find letting go is in practically everything…
I love that so many of your descriptions of the reasons why you love being an artist are so visual~~~
@win@disqus_wis3MT2Vgd:disqus I am hopelessly visual! I think most of us are..I just think that way!
I Love being an artist because it makes me feel like I have the ability to think outside the box, and to produce work that some viewers are are blown away by, and they make me feel very clever. I also Love being an artist because it means I get to experiment often.
FAB post Nick. I love that painting is about connection; to the landscape, to others both past and present, to something spiritual, to love. 🙂❤️
This resonated strongly with me, lifted me up and then found a little place of peace with me at the end of my day. Thank you
Brenda–wonderful –thanks
I love being an artist because it means that I have this passion in my life that constantly animates my days. People frequently tell me that they wish they too had a passion in their life. I wish that for everyone. Not that it always needs to be art, which happens to be my particular passion.
@judee@disqus_Hrkr9DILcy:disqus Passion is just one of those essential things–when I lose it I lose all my energy…
I just read this (and I quote you) elsewhere on your site Nicholas:
“There is one thing you absolutely must have when it comes to making amazing artwork: PASSION”
Because I love to draw, because it’s such a challenge, because I would like to produce something beautiful, because I love colour, because it keeps me happy, because it absorbs me, because I am always learning, because I love it!
This is beautiful, Nick. It is such a testament to why I am grateful to have my art at this time in my life. Thank you so much for sharing your heART!!!
I love being an artist because it connects me to myself. That simple, and that complicated. This is a beautiful post, thank you!
Thank you this is beautiful Nicholas. Have you heard the TED talk by Young-ha Kim? It’s called Be an Artist, right now!….reminds me why I love to be an artist. To play forever! We are all born to play and create… Some just forget. I have a sign on my studio wall that reads – an Artists job is to turn time in things. Here is a thing that I made from time…Namaste
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I love that you spell art with a capital A.
I love the periods of being deeply present in the moment unaware of time and again and again being witness to the spirit, the magic, the muse. Thank you Nick for you generously sharing yourself with us.
Waves of true happiness comes to me when I am in the flow!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. I understand you so well, I love to wake up in the still dark mornings and see the light of the sun still hidden behind the mountains, turning pink an golden the sky, in this beautiful north Spain landscape.
This is so beautifully expressed Nicholas! I love reading your thoughts- you are a creator with words as well as paints.I really look forward to each newsletter and often share them with my sister, too.
Blessed New Year, always stay young and excited by life- Kathleen
Precisely why I do art. What a great piece! It is about how it makes me feel. How it soothed me as a young person when life was full of pain.
How it saved me from a life of cynicism because even at my most cynical I transform the minute I sit down to create something.