New Potters all the time

Have you any idea how many new potters are being born today?  Well, eventually they grow big enough to start making their wares or sculpting their objects of art...and there you have it.  New potters all the time.

I'm on my way to the environment of NCECA, where many many clay artists will be gathering.  There have been some losses this year of the old and great potters.  But the people who gather for this conference will probably be more than a hundred for each space that a recently deceased potter held.  That's a hundred hopeful talented people, dedicating a sizeable portion of their lives to make art out of clay.

Pretty amazing, isn't it?  How many will succeed, do you think?  Half?  A dozen?  One?

That was what struck me when I was sitting in an auditorium in art school, listening to a lecture about Fine Art with about 500 other students.  Well, at least 200.  I just looked around and thought, how many of these people will have their work in a gallery in 10 years?  I figured I wouldn't.  But that's cause I had already recognized that I needed to make a living doing something that provided a.) steady income, and b.) health insurance for myself and my son.

 I salute those hearty souls who step into the hopeful future with determination and whatever else it takes to live the life of an artist.  I know my potter son has spent a lot of his adult life without health insurance or a steady income.  He didn't have job security high on his list of values for a long time, but he's started talking about it lately.  And he's also considering going to grad school in, you guessed it, art and ceramics.  So he will have to wait a while for the steady income and health insurance maybe.  But I think, the world will be a better place for his having created what he can in those years, rather than having traded his artistic endeavors for security.

What about you?  Do you follow your dream?  Do you have what it takes to put your life into your creativity?

Snow is forecast for this morning, before later getting into the 40's when it will melt.  Wonder if we will see some more of whiteness...and if it's finally the last of this winter...

wonder...isn't it all about wonder?