Excerpts from Chapter 1

The Beginning

All right, so you're soon to graduate from art school, if indeed you haven't already. Or maybe you never did graduate but just dropped out; maybe you wearied of what all those professors were trying to teach you, and just wanted to dive into it on your own. Or maybe art school was twenty years ago and you're only now picking up where you left off. Or maybe you don't want to be an artist but simply want to live the artist's life. You want to create. You want your life to be your canvas. It can be. It should be. For all of us this should be so. For very few, it is.

Assuming you've acquired the necessary background in painting or sculpting or printmaking, or maybe a smattering of disciplines, do one thing first: congratulate yourself. It wasn't easy. It cost a struggle of emotions and finances and loneliness and exaltation and despair and odd alliances and odder rivalries but, in the end, it should have brought you closer to your calling. If it didn't, don't worry, time and hard work will do that. Time alone may do it, but not in the way that work will...

A Guide to Growing, Persevering, and Succeeding in the Art World