Develop Thick Skin - How to be an artist

I often say, I didn't know what depression was until I became an artist, or maybe when my kids became teenagers. It is hard not to take your art personally. When you are selling, you are on a high. When you are not selling, you can't even see the top of the mountain, because of all the haze around you.

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It is a roller coaster ride sometimes. You have to have a thick skin. There are people who just won't like your work. That's a given! If you take your work to Galleries, some of them won't like your work. If you do juried art shows you are putting your work out there for people to judge. And judge they will. You become invisible, there as so many tents with artists, that you become invisible. People will stand right in front of you a say what they don't like about your work.

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I don't hear a lot of negative comments anymore, but when I was starting out I certainly did.

Some of these comments can actully help you, if you can take your bruised feelings out of the equation. There are always things that we can improve in our work. Art is an aspiration. It is a lofty place that we are attaining to get to. Always out of our reach, like a Mirage in the Desert.

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Listen to comments and learn though them. Don't let them become distractions.

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Develope a thick skin!