The Mind of the Artist

I was flipping through the March copy of Reader’s Digest and came across the following article, “The Mind of the Inventor” and as I read about the five unique ways inventors think, it occured to me that one could easily apply this list to artists:

1.) We constantly ask, “What if?” Artists, like inventors, are driven to create just for the sake of seeing the results. “What if I pushed the darks?” “What if I used red?” What if I did a series on this subject?”

2.) We delight in the process. Although the result is interesting, artists are also invigorated by the process of creating art. We revel in our materials. We delight in the sight, sound, feel, even smell of our paint, clay, or ink. There is nothing so enticing as a blank board just waiting for us to carve our ideas into it.

3.) We see the world as a child does. Although there may be nothing new under the sun, everything is new in the eyes of artists. We never stopped asking, “Why?” “How?” “Can I do that?”

4.) We are dreamers. While others slowly stopped listening to their dreams, their subconscious, artists continue to pay close attention to the mental images that play through our minds. Of course, not every idea is great, or even good, but in the words of scientist Linus Pauling, “The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”

5.) We aren’t easily discouraged. The only difference between a practicing artist and people who stopped drawing in elementary school is just that, practice. Artists have to develop a thick skin – as protection against outsiders who would shoot down our ideas and as a firewall against our own creeping self-doubt. As the article points out, “one of the most important traits in any inventor is sheer tenacity” and the same is true of any artist.