Late last week I published an interview with Marco Taro Holmes, one of the original members of Urban Sketchers, on my now 10-year old web site The Watercolor Gallery.
It was a pleasure to interview Marc and a lot of his answers epitomize the reason I built The Watercolor Gallery in 2010 – to inspire and motivate other artists regardless of their medium or tools.
Here are a few pull quotes from the interview that I believe should inspire anyone that wishes to be creative.
You have to completely understand your own process before you can teach it to someone else right? So it’s incredibly educational to be a teacher. I know a guy who calls teaching ‘Aggressive Learning’.
And:
I feel like art in our society got off on a wrong track. We don’t look at sport, or music in the same way. Art is often considered ‘inspiration’. or ‘a gift’. We don’t think that way about anything else that involves training your body to perform complex tasks. Dance, Piano, Yoga – a Martial Art – all these things all involve coaching and self-training programs. And competitions. Score-keeping. Practical ways to motivate yourself and improve your abilities.
And:
Focus on skills first. Invest in yourself. If the work isn’t there, nothing else matters.
And:
And you know – it’s perfectly fine not to live from your art. Some of the greatest artists and writers in history have been office clerks or postal workers.
And finally, on blogging:
It’s a terrific vehicle for organizing your thoughts – but it’s also that guy who stands over your shoulder and pressures you to keep working! To deliver something for the audience. I love that boost to my motivation. It was fuel for the fire to keep learning about art, and keep sharing what I learned.
Stop by the site and read the entire interview. But also stop by Marc’s blog.