Mediocrity - the Word of the Week


It's the word that strikes fear in an artist's heart, isn't it? What if I'm just so-so? What if I'm only half-way there? I don't know many people that set out to climb half a mountain as their ultimate goal. But not many people can climb a mountain the first try, either. You have to train to get to the top of a mountain.

Really, we're all bound as artists to make some works that get half way there. I was talking (okay, typing in a group) about all the paintings that Rembrandt might have thrown away. Or what about the chunks of marble that Michelangelo heaved into the reject pile? Do we really imagine that these great artists didn't have some mediocre works? Every work along the way teaches you something that will someday contribute to that work that you will see as your "great work".

She says, muttering, as she goes back to the "Creation Zone".

5 comments:

Penny Cork said...

That is something to ponder, what could have been thrown out in a moment of self doubt. Maybe someone will find one of the masterworks, and it will turn up on the Antiques Roadshow!

Penny :)

Deborah said...

Nice post, Dixie!

Got a chuckle out of your Creative Zone remark...how's it going in there anyhow??

Gerushia's New World said...

Dixie:

Great post on mediocrity. It really is fascinating to imagine what mediocre work may have been thrown by the wayside by famous artists. I've sort of wondered about that before. I have a print of a Maxfield Parrish in my bathroom and I can just stare at his blues forever. BUT...how many paintings did he do that he didn't capture that blue?

Kim
Garden Painter Art
gnarly-dolls

VIM said...

What's mediocrisy to one isn't to another. It's like SUCCESS, what is that? Good post Dix!

Shabby Cottage Studio said...

I can remember when I taught painting the indignation my students threw at me when I was getting ready to toss a sample board...to me it was..eh, so what..but to them it something else, ti was successful and special. Great post Dixie.


"Do not let what you cannot do
keep you from doing what you can do."

John Wooden