Mortal To Master

The idea of mastery can be daunting. It’s easy to look at the ones who’ve come before and think ‘wow I could never do that’. The art world is notorious for keeping this dynamic alive. We try to copy the Old Masters in art school and marvel at their works in museums. But what if, instead of putting the Old Masters high up on a pedestal; we begin to think of them as fellow peers. After all, they were humans just like us right? I recently visited the Art Institute in Chicago to put this thought into practice. I viewed Monet, Van Gogh, and Turner with a new liberating perspective. I looked at their work just as I would look at art in a local gallery or view an artist friend’s exhibition. I replaced feelings of inferiority with comradery. The life of a painter is all in the same; we are humans responding. Let’s rewrite the narrative that certain accomplishments can not be attained by us mere mortals.

We can become the masters of what we set out to do.