LONG ROAD TO BECOMING AN ARTIST

This is not a manual or how-to, but simply an attempt to share my reflections on my developmental experience.

     However much and wherever you have studied, it does not give you the right to think that you are an artist. You can draw - probably, yes. And it's not a panacea. In other cases, it can even be a burden that hinders your development. A crude but visible analogy: pregnancy is not yet motherhood.

  Almost always and everyone, well, maybe except for geniuses, needs a very long period of maturation and attached to it sufferings and experiences, sometimes leading to sad events.  

   This period of "suffering" and forms the soul of the artist, his worldview and judgments. For, as Leonardo da Vinci wrote: "Pity the master whose works are ahead of his judgments."

The mentioned sufferings are mental torment, search for oneself, one's place in art, one's right to a place "in the row". The period is characterized by extreme emotional outbursts, jealousy and envy of the more successful, shuffling from side to side, readiness to push and defend one's priorities and not yet formed judgments.

The least resistant in this period are ready to give anything and give themselves to anyone, even to hell, for immediate success and recognition. Because the young artist, as Camus wrote-"...and not in the monastery, and not in the world, he is tormented by the temptations of both this and that life.

Intermittent outbursts of self-deprecation and unreasonable pride are also extremely characteristic of the period of suffering.

 It is this difficult and painful period, passing through which without losing himself, his self, is a necessary step for the formation of the personality of the artist. The duration of the period is highly individualized, but no less than 5-7 years.

Then we move smoothly into the "period of realization". Something starts to become clear, like the fact that "although your nose is long, but your eyes are beautiful", and the understanding that you are you. Gradually the desire to elbow colleagues, to try to prove something or imitate someone disappears.  There comes an understanding of yourself - it is just what the ancient Greeks said - "know yourself and you will know the whole world. The result of such cognition on the physical plane is not that you put green instead of yellow, but that the same form is filled with depth and content. And most importantly, you begin to realize on an unconscious level that everything external: colleagues, time of year, conjunctures, is not worth worrying about and paying attention to. You should not waste your energy on it, but serve, exactly serve your image of Beauty, what is inside! You need to hurry to put on paper everything that makes your soul tremble!

And when you immerse yourself, and serve the art in yourself, suddenly it turns out that very, very many people share your preferences, and friends and colleagues, just those whose favor and favor you unsuccessfully sought during the "period of suffering". But now, in your new hypostasis, you do not need it. It is pleasant, of course, but what is burning in your heart is incomparably purer, higher and deeper.

Finishing, I want to once again support young colleagues - suffer, worry and suffer - this is exactly what we all need to achieve peace of mind and recognize the simple truth: although with a long nose, but it is me! Remember - it is impossible to give birth without agony and all 9 months are a necessary preparation for the opportunity and right to be a mother!