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This enhanced photograph of a flame azalea is only an example of the possibilities of digital art.  As a traditional painter, I can appreciate the skill required to bring photography beyond the capture of the real to the realm of the unreal.  Whether this leads to using this creation as a reference or a stand-alone work of art remains to be seen.  Excited about where this might lead.

I may be showing my age, but remember the old Timex watch commercial.  To display the fine workmanship and durability of the watch, the spots showcased examples of the Timex being abused in many ways, and at the end, it was always still working!  The message was the product was built tough, built to last, and was a good investment (though they were, and are, very affordable.)  As an artist, what do we do to make our work, and ourselves, able to "take a licking and keep on ticking"?

When creative people put the results of their creativity out for public display, that same public always has a reaction.  It might be ridicule, astonishment, offense, acceptance, adoration, or neglect, among a million others.  Of course, we want the better of those choices, and a financial reward would be a  nice touch, too, right?  What if nothing happens?  Egos take a beating, and we are left shaking our heads, wondering what we did that brought the hounds to our heels, or worse yet, that no one even noticed.  At the end of the day, each artist must face the real reason we do what we do:  it feeds us, it calms us, it shares our message, it is an avenue to vent our views, or maybe it is an attempt to connect to a wider world.  Our motivations are as unique as each of us.

What drives the artist to keep "taking a licking"?  For me, I know it is a drive that I cannot deny, a way to leave some of myself  and my view of the world for others to explore.  Who knows who will be inspired by my work?  I know that I have been inspired by other artists, literary and visual, musical and intellectual.  Recently, one of my inspirational teachers, Pat Conroy, passed away.  I was deeply affected.  I had met him several times, mostly when he was living in Atlanta, but I've loved his writings (sometimes struggled with the demons he released through those cathartic stories), and he taught me to love the lowcountry, the coastal plain that fills and empties brackish water twice a day.  His descriptors were so rich and fragrant, you could almost taste them.  I don't know that I would have ever connected so strongly to this region down the road if I had not read his work.  Something in writing from his heart spoke to mine, and I will be forever grateful for that.  I am sure in his writing life, he took some hits, as well as his personal life.  He was at war with his home city and his military academy, the Citadel,  for many years for exposing some of the dirty laundry that they would have preferred stay hidden.  In the end, he made peace with them, or they with him, and he died a loved, and greatly missed native son. What a legacy.  

What are you, as an artist, doing to inspire others, and "keep on ticking"?  What will it take for you to see that your influence on those who surround you, casually or closely, touches their lives with the paintbrush you hold?  Or the chisel you wield? Or the story you write?

Bravely face what your art brings you, continue to put yourself out there, if for no other reason than to prove to yourself that you have a voice among the many.  Even if you take a licking....keep on ticking.