Why I don't draw

I often feel that people don't understand why those of us with artistic talent aren't running around capturing all the beautiful things around us; in some artistic form or other.

A friend gave me a book, "A Giacometti Portrait" by James Lord.

The author is posing for an artist and trying to recount the process and the psyche of the artist in midst of the artistic endeavor.

This description at the beginning rings very true to me.


Suddenly, he turned, went into the corner of the studio and started to rearrange the bronze figures standing there, which banged and clanged as they knocked against each other.  Nearly an hour had passed.  He seemed to be avoiding desperately the moment when he would have to start work on something new.  He is so poignantly aware of the difficulty of making visible to others his own vision of reality that he must be unnerved by the necessity of having to try to do it once more.  Thus, he would naturally delay as long as possible the decisive act of beginning."  


I'm usually fine to fiddle around on small "craftsier" things, even small "gifts" items, but I do have ideas almost every day that I qualify as more of my inner artistic impulse.  But it is safer to think that they "would" be awesome if I executed them but not actually go through the struggle of trying to express them and then fail at the endeavor.  I'm sure this is metaphorical of many aspects of life, but for this moment I'm appreciating this book and the reminder that art is a struggle--one that I might never be brave enough to pursue, or perhaps one that is waiting for me....