The Gift Of Gratefulness To The Artist

I often relate to my young art students the following statement about the difficulty of making art, “you walk into an empty room you have labeled your studio, and say to yourself, “I have to make a work of art.”” The concerns become overwhelming; what is art, how do I make it, what material do I use, why make it, who is my audience, can and/or should it be understandable…(the three dots stand for an almost limitless list of concerns the artist is faced with when assigning himself the task of making art.)  Two things I have found most helpful in this dilemma is to focus on the six elements of art (form, shape, line, space, texture, color), there is a reason they got that name and secondly and infinitely more important, focus on The One that not only conceived of those elements, then was powerful to make them but mainly was so very kind that He shares them.  At this point, I stop being paralyzing bewildered and become overwhelming grateful, a much better state to begin the process of maybe making an actual work of art.    

A test for a new work of art I am considering gratefully attempting.