Art, Artists and Vocation
"If you really want to upset your parents ... go into the
arts! "- Kurt Vonnegut
How many times have people been told that "You can't
make it as an artist. "
How many times when you've told someone that you are
studying theater, dance, the visual arts, do people look at
you and cringe; feel sorry for you, and feel that you and your
family have wasted a great deal of money, and that you have
wasted years of your life.
How often when you tell people that you are involved in the
arts, do people feel sorry for you because you won't be able
to find a job or make it in the "real world".
A vocation has been described as "something you can't not
do. "
Frederich Buechner has defined vocation as "the place
where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need. "
A very wise man, Harold Babcock, has this to say, "Vocation
is not simply about doing, but, at a much deeper level, it is
about being. It is about what Thomas Merton called "one's
true self, "that self that one is really meant to be, and that no
one else can be. "Vocation is not always something we
choose, much as we might like to thinks so; rather, it is
often something which chooses us. "
An artistic vocation, sharing your beauty, depth, insight and
wisdom with the world, is both a gift and a responsibility.
People who have an artistic vocation often have having
different specified than other people. It means that having a
fancy car, expensive house, designer clothes, is not as
important as doing "the thing you can't not do."
If you have a vocation as an artist, you are not different from
the world, but rather you have been given an extraordinary
gift, one that requires dedication, focus, courage,
perseverance and hard work. Art is not for the faint of heart.
© Mary Baker 2005
