Katsushika Hokusai

Self-Portrait

"I have been in love with painting ever since I became conscious of it at the age of six.  I drew some pictures I thought fairly good when I was fifty, but really nothing I did before the age of seventy was of any value at all.  At seventy-three I have at last caught every aspect of nature — birds, fish, animals, insects, trees, grasses, all.  When I am eighty I shall have developed still further, and I will really master the secrets of art at ninety.  When I reach a hundred my work will be truly sublime, and my final goal will be attained around the age of one hundred and ten, when every line and dot I draw will be imbued with life.

— Katsushika Hokusai

Japanese Artist

1760 - 1849

Humility — a trait many creative leaders do not possess, yet a behavior we all should cultivate.  In fact, the lack of humility has caused the down fall of many creative leaders.  They start believing what their admirers say and acting in accordance with what is said.  In the words of my childhood:  they grow too big for their britches.  They begin to believe their own press.

Learn to cultivate the trait of humility.  None of us are perfect.  We all make mistakes — both in our personal lives and our artistic creations.  It takes a lifetime to become a master and even then we may not achieve that designation.  Be thankful for what you have been given and seek to be humble.

Great Wave of Kanagawa

Sometimes we become so caught up in the day to day activities of living that we forget how short life is. We are here today and gone tomorrow.  In the eons of time, we live for only a second.  That fact alone should make us humble.  And if you look at our place in the universe, we shrink even more.  Practice humility.

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Fernando Botero

"When you start painting, it is somewhat outside you.  At the conclusion, you seem to move inside the painting."

— Fernando Botero

Columbian Artist

1932 - 

Do you become a part of your art?  Your writing?  When you are finished, do you leave a part of yourself on the canvas or on the page?  Do you leave a part of yourself inside the characters you create?  Those who believe that they are separate from what they create are not being honest with themselves.  You and your art are connected at a very deep level.

Woman Drinking with Cat

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Sam Savage

"I really do think that art can save you in some sense.  It's the last meaning, unless you're religious — and I'm not religious.  It's the only secular vehicle for transcendence we have.  It's an immediate self-validating experience.  It lifts you beyond your mortal clay."

— Sam Savage

American Novelist

1940 - 

Art is a form of salvation.  Through art we can discover something beyond ourselves to believe in.  Through art we can discover who we are and who we are meant to be.  Through our art we may even find eternal life.  We can live beyond the grave.

The story of Sam Savage provides hope for all unrecognized painters, poets and novelists.  He toiled for years as an unpublished writer.  At the age of 55 he gave up writing.  A part of him died.  At the age of sixty, he picked up the pen again and wrote.  He said: "I started writing again because I'd given up.  I didn't expect anything from it."  In 2006, Coffee House Press published his first novel, Firmin, told from the perspective of a book eating rat.  The novel became an international best seller.  

Sam said in an interview with Kevin Larimer, "I just sort of quit — gave up completely.  I was fifty-five years old and I just gave up.  And it was total and sincere."  I believe he probably gave up because he felt like a failure.  And society would probably call him a failure.  But I don't think he was.  We make a mistake when we think that one has to be published to be a success.  

For me, success comes from the creative process itself.  If you create, you are a success.  The marketing and selling of the work is a business issue.  Just because there is not an audience for your work does not make you less successful as an artist.  Don't confuse the business of art with the creative process.  Remember that the creation of artistic works is a form of spiritual salvation.  

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