"Not every piece needs to be a home run.
Sometimes the small, quiet pauses can be an important part of the conversation.
---Krista Steinke
"Cloud Study" by Krista Steinke
I had a discouraging week. Although I worked hard in my studio, putting in a lot of time and energy, the results were bad. This felt frustrating and depressing, as you can imagine.
I took comfort in my sketchbook, where I re-discovered some words of wisdom glued into the pages. These are words of encouragement from the artist Krista Steinke, from an interview called "5 Questions with Krista Steinke." which I found on Angela Fraleigh's Blog, one of my all-time favorite blogs to read. I love this blog so much that I often print parts of it out and glue those parts into my sketchbook, for times of great need.
"The Forest" by Krista Steinke
Krista Steinke's Mantras
- Failure is critical to success (we hear this a lot these days--but so true).
- Embrace constructive criticism. It's ok to disagree, but be able to articulate why.
- We live in a fast-paced environment. Ours is a culture of the immediate or instantaneous. Sometimes it's hard to remember that good art takes time. Be patient and work hard.
- When building a body of work, not every piece needs to be a home run. Sometimes the small, quiet pauses can be an important part of the conversation.
- Everyone gets rejected...acknowledge that it's part of the routine and keep moving forward.
- Progress involves taking risks, both small and large.
- Don't be afraid to go down the rabbit hole...go way, way down to the point of getting lost.
Thanks for reading! I hope you found Krista Steinke's words as encouraging as I did! And I can't resist this little SPOILER ALERT: I conducted an interview with Angela Fraleigh back in March. I'm hoping to publish it soon, in the next week or two. So, you can start getting excited about that!