I'm not certain why, but we tend to romanticize the making of art.
But making art is not the same as enjoying the finished project.
Making art takes time, more time than even accomplished and experienced artists sometimes estimate for a project, and that time is often laborious and tedious.
Now there's definitely an indescribable delight in the finished product, no doubt.
But that's brief and fleeting. For even the person who climbs a mountaintop must climb back down. The way up and the way down is challenging and the outcome isn't certain.
To return to a mountaintop high, one must start a new project, a new climb, a new goal with no reassurance of reaching the top.
To create art means risking failure, over and over and over again - while taking those repetitive steps that may come with some boredom. That's not easy to do on a daily basis.
Fortunately, I save most artistic projects for the weekend. Journalism, for all its twenty-first uncertainties, comes with one certainty.
I must meet those deadlines if I want to stick around in the industry.
Here's a good article on the boring life of an artist.
Illustration by Christopher Gleason for "Staked!" Follow
him at artworkbytopher.com.
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