5 Artists on the Lessons Learned from Their Biggest Obstacles
Photo: Courtesy, Yoshino
To successfully chart one’s course as an artist is to be adept at facing and overcoming the many challenges that often come with the pursuit of one’s passions. From internal struggles and artistic/creative development to entrepreneurial learning, there is always a test of our fortitude, character and resiliency at every stage of the creative journey. We are continuously inquiring into the deep recesses of our minds and met with questions such as: “Am I good enough?” “In what ways can I differentiate myself as an Artist?” “Can I grow this hobby into a thriving and fulfilling business?” and so on.
For early career artists and creatives, these personal and professional challenges and questions, when encountered, can often be overwhelming and discouraging without the proper tools and resources in place to manage, resolve and overcome them.
With this in mind, we’ve invited five (5) different artists to serve as mentor and share some personal insights on the biggest obstacle they’ve overcome on their creative journey, and the lessons they’ve learned from having undergone that experience. In reading these personal reflections, our hope is that you’re left with the understanding that challenges and obstacles are inevitable on the creative path; they are a feature and a necessary component to introduce you to your own latest firmware update — a much better and improved version of you.
YOSHINO, Photographer
Discover the Artist: yoshinostudios.com; artistdecoded.com
“One of the biggest obstacles that anyone can face is to truly be honest with one's self. We are all social creatures. In general, we want to be liked by our peers or audience, but at times those affirmations can bring to the surface more access points for self-inquiry. Why do we need to have those affirmations in the first place? What does that tell us about how we perceive ourselves? I tend to write down a series of questions to myself when I find myself at a point of contention with my true identity. I find that questions lead to more interesting results than answers.
Also, something that I think about a lot is the idea of fortitude. I ingrain training regiments into my daily practice to increase resiliency in my everyday life. There's a compound effect that occurs when you constantly put yourself through hard and painful things. After a while, you build up such a resistance to outside forces that your threshold for pain increases to a much greater level than you may have initially thought you could have achieved. The practice starts to become more internal than external, which is where I believe true wisdom is held, within one's self.”
BILL MURPHY, Painter & Printmaker
Discover the Artist: aburninglight.com
“It’s my belief that the obstacles we face in our career as artists change as we move through the artistic journey. When I was young, the main obstacle was financial. How do you give yourself enough time to create art that is not influenced by the pressure to sell it? As an art student one of my teachers told me that it was “much easier to be broke in the 1950’s” ( this was the mid 70’s); Now, in 2021, it seems clear that it’s much more difficult to live in the world on a young artists’ income. On the other hand, the reason why the art world is filled with a good deal of mediocrity (my opinion, obviously) is that so many people who come from some form of entitlement (trust funds, inheritance, etc.) gravitate to the arts as a playground of sorts. (Yet, of all the artists that have influenced me, very few came from early financial security). As we get older the money issue seems to find its own level – everyone seems to find a way to keep afloat. For me it was teaching in a college. But that’s not the end of the obstacles; their origin just shifts.
The biggest obstacle in my work now is the conflict between staying true to what is important to me versus repeating past successes ad infinitum. The question becomes: how do I move forward, in an art practice that uses the same language that I’ve used for the past 50 years, but also keeping it invigorated, alive, and meaningful? There’s no easy solution for that, but I find I’ve got an inner observer now who starts complaining when he sees the reappearance of themes, subjects or compositions. I find I simply can’t continue with the work when that happens.
One learns to throw a curveball at oneself. Use materials you think you don’t like. Compose in a circle instead of a rectangle. Change the scale, change your angle, change something. Life is too short to waste the moment in repetition. The same teacher who talked about how it was easier being broke back then also would often say to me “it’s not an easy life, but I’m glad I’ve had it”. I would tend to agree.”
OLGA GINZBURG, Documentary Photographer
Discover the Artist: olgaginzburg.com
“As an artist, I would say it’s the small daily obstacles that I try to overcome. The obstacles are really just one obstacle for me, and that is making myself create, and on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s effortless, but oftentimes I have to nudge myself. It takes some effort for me to push myself out the door into the unknown, and even more so to approach people and make portraits of them. These interactions give my life greater meaning, and it’s probably what I love to do most, but I have to overcome my fears in the process. The same goes for work that I make at home. I might have an idea, but just as often I don’t know what I’m going to do, and so it’s easy to tell myself that I don’t know what I’m doing. But when I make myself set up my camera, put the phone and laptop away, strip away all the unnecessary elements, I invariably make something. It’s play and it’s freeing, and I’m probably my most creative at these times—I love the imposed limitations of home.
I don’t know if it’s Chuck Close’s original quote, but I’ve heard some variation of “inspiration is for amateurs—the rest of us just show up and get to work,” from so many that I admire and draw inspiration from. I try to live by that, though I certainly stumble along the way. It’s just heartening to hear from others what I know to be true from personal experience—that it isn’t always (or even often) going to be effortless, and it isn’t only meant to happen when inspiration strikes. I’ve made things that I ended up loving when I wasn’t in the mood, or was really unsure of myself, but went for it anyway. And to also remind myself—regularly—that so much of the joy lies in the process.”
KEVIN ROMAN, Visual Artist & Digital Strategist
Discover the Artist: KFR
“I must say my biggest obstacle was the entire process of my first paid photo shoot, particularly putting myself out there to do the project in the first place. It had its own issues throughout (you look back and you see how much you’ve grown and what you would change), but the most practical lesson I took from it was that I was good enough regardless. It was a transaction, my time was valued, my skill set is developed enough to charge someone who could not do what I do and wanted it.”
STEPHEN OBISANYA, Documentary Photographer
Discover the Artist: stephenobisanya.com
“For a long time, I believed that my lack of formal training and experience inside the creative industry meant that I had nothing worthwhile to share, nothing impactful to contribute, and that I’d be a fraud if I ever publicly attempted to put my limited resources and personal experience to some use. Getting over that hump was one of the most pivotal moments for me. As with most things, that epiphany did not happen overnight. Instead, it slowly took form in between many enlightening conversations with friends & mentors, and insights gained from many useful talks and interviews (all of these have done me so many favors in more ways than one). The lessons gleaned from many of those conversations have come to define my philosophy today, especially one from a dear friend and entrepreneur, Thierry Augustin.
His advice was simply to ‘come to grips with the fact that the work you do or make is a necessity — somebody out there is desperately waiting to be moved and changed by it. If you fail to show up to do the work, you not only fail to meet the goals you’ve set for yourself, you also fail to deliver the necessary product, lesson, experience or idea that was meant to have an undeniable impact on the lives of those who were waiting for YOUR specific thing’.
I am where I am today because the people whom I look up to, at one point in time during their own emergence, decided to show up consistently to do AND share the work they were passionate about whether they were self-taught or formally trained. They understood that they had something noteworthy to share and contribute and that the impact of such a decision was potentially limitless. Today, I am deeply moved by that philosophy and I’m encouraged daily to simply show up, in one way or another.”