Writing With Silvia Hartmann

Writing - You Need Courage, Not Talent!

>>> Thank you dear one. I love art, and it is a blessing to be so talented as to publish your work. I will check it out. Blessings and thank you for sharing and allowing us to see your work<<<


Well, this was a very nice and warming sentiment that flowed quite sweetly through me but in truth, and this is an absolute truth about the universe, "talent" has nothing to do with it.

Really.

It is a question not of talent but of courage. Now, we could call "courage" a talent but I don't really think so; and here is my reasoning.

In order for me to have received the above message (and other comments on those pieces of work) I had to publish my work FIRST.

In those days, that was not an easy thing for I am and was overly sensitive to the shortcomings of my own work, as is everyone else.

Now, MOST people then do one of the following. They will either:

A) hide their work in a closet; the reasoning being that it's "only for practice" or "I'll wait until I get better at it and the major flaws are overcome before I publish it."

Or

B) hide their work in a closet and wait for an unknown force to come knocking on the door and demand to see the wonders hidden in the closet and this way, "they will be discovered". Magically.

There are SOME people who do something else.

They take their "attempts" out of the closet and brazenly, bravely, sometimes stupidly put them out there. I am one of those people.

The result of this is that THEIR paintings, songs, books, whatever then ARE OUT THERE and in being there, they BECOME THAT WHICH IS PUBLISHED AND THEREBY PUBLIC.

This is completely regardless and irrespective of whether there is ANY MERIT, ANY TALENT or even ANY CONTRIBUTION beyond that courageous act of "public performance" AT ALL.

Next, we have the responses of the audience and the critics to this public performance.

This is also completely immaterial.

High praise and high criticism alike causes attention and controversy, which gets even MORE people to be interested and more people to see and interact with the performance.

If the artist simply doesn't stop, they WILL eventually get all the things that artists want, from acclaim, to a fan club, to high prices for their performances - and all of that is TOTALLY REGARDLESS of any inherent merit whatsoever.

It all rests of the courage of the performer or artist to put themselves out there and weather the storms of response. That is the ONLY SINGLE FACTOR which defines the difference between a successful artist, and a closet artist, not talent, not merit, not luck.

Now that courage arises interestingly not so much from a belief in the MERIT of the art, but simply from the fact that the artist CAN'T STOP DOING IT even if they wanted to.

This is what makes them go back for more and do it AGAIN, even after all the reviews were abysmal, or there were no reviews at all and everyone ignored them completely.

The act of doing the performance is something that can't be stopped by FEEDBACK, and that is the defining skill and talent of any artist or anyone who seeks public acceptance and acclaim as artists do, no matter what their field of endeavour might be, and no matter what level they are defining "public acceptance" at.

Now if we pull that right back upon its most basic components, then what we have is the INVINCIBILITY of something that comes from within the artist and compels them to do what it is they are doing. Because it comes from within, it can't be destroyed or even tampered with from without, and you could say that the various hurdles of public acceptability are nothing more than a device to filter the wheat from the chaff, i.e. that only those who simply cannot stop will succeed in the end and come through, BECOME THE NEW STANDARD eventually and the acclaimed artists of the day.

Talent, craft or skill is NOT what makes the artist in the end.

It is their own truth and their own internal processes, their drive to DO what it is they are doing.

If this is strong enough, they simply will continue to sing right up to the scaffold, preach right up to the guillotine, and draw their images on street corners with their canvass being the asphalt when it comes to it.

An interesting observation, to be sure.