Future Famous Artist Will Work For Food, Bed, and Supplies!

A young, aspiring artist making the most out of what he has to work with.

Great art takes inspiration, dedication, focus, time, and resources. Though one may be inspired and possess the necessary dedication, in the real world, one may very well lack the necessary focus, because most, if not all, of one’s time is spent struggling at the lower rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs, barely eking out a day-to-day existence. We have all heard the phrase “starving artist,” so we might be inclined to ignore the impact of poverty upon the creation of great art. After all, artists are supposed to be poor and starving, right? Wrong!

The greatest works of art known to mankind, those that emerged out of the Age of the Renaissance, as well as the greats from the more recent Era of the Impressionists, had been commissioned works. Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Matisse, Monet and his mentor/colleague, Manet, had been hired by the wealthy of their time, provided the space, all the required resources, along with a handsome stipend to create works to honor their wealthy benefactors and to bolster their social prestige. Great cathedrals, castles, and mansions had tall walls, huge empty space crying for works of art to fill them.

I’m sure that history had produced many other artists as talented, or even more talented, than those we have come to know as the greats, artists whose names we never got to know because they did not come from wealth, nor were they “connected” to the wealth of their time.

One is not likely to spend months and years chipping away at marble with a hammer and chisel, creating a David, or a Pieta, when one is starving. Nor might one find the time to do so when all available time is spent simply trying to stay alive. It is a steep, difficult climb to the pinnacle of Maslow’s pyramid. Few talented artists ever experience the euphoria that the view from the peak of self-actualization provides, because, that journey takes more gold than most artists, alone, will ever have!

Gold - the diference between great artistic talent and world-wide recognition of one's artistic talent.