There’s a really old joke. Someone asks “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The other person replies “Practice, Practice, Practice.” It’s a silly joke except for one thing—it’s absolutely true. I don’t know if Carnegie Hall is still the epitome of musical venues, but if you want to rise to the highest places in your art or craft, the answer, more than connections, or anything else is you need to practice. There is no substitute for doing the work.
This little acronym came to mind M.A,D, which stands for Make Art Daily. Now I can almost feel may wife cringing, “Oh no, he’s working on another self-imposed deadline. Not that’s not exactly what I mean. You don’t necessarily have to make a full, complete, finished, polished work every day. For some art forms, that’s not even possible, but you can determine to spend a certain period of time working on your craft each day. It might be a simple sketch, even a doodle. It ,might involve writing down your thoughts or working through an element of your craft that has you stumped. The idea is to spend at least a little time each day working on whatever it is that you want to do well One of the things I like to do is work with a prompt. Each day, I get a prompt that forces me out of my comfort zone. When I pick and choose my own subjects, I tend to stay within a genre and work with subject matter that makes me very comfortable. I have a few books out of prompts if you’re interested.
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Now of course you don’t need to buy a book from me or anyone else to do this. You simply need to seek out inspiration and then do something with it. The point is, in any pursuit, but especially in creative pursuits, there is no short cut for doing the work.
So go M.A.D. Make Art Daily! It’s the best way to learn and grow in any artistic discipline.
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AMOKArts 