One of the problems that face theatre majors is which branch of theatre to specialize in. Many theatre majors enjoy and are good at more than one area. Of course, there are those who know exactly what they want to do, but others have to figure out whether they would rather concentrate on acting, directing, design, costumes, props, construction, lighting, sound, or front-of-house operations. What usually happens is that individuals choose a main area of concentration, but continue to work in other areas as well—at least for a while. The question then becomes how to decide which to make the primary area and which to make secondary.

Musical instrumentalists very often avoid such a decision by not limiting themselves to a single instrument. Often they will play a range of instruments, often one as well as another. For example, some musicians play several wind instruments or a range of reed instruments or a variety of stringed instruments. Many, many musicians play piano as well as their other principal instrument. A great number of vocalists play one or more instruments as well. Additionally, some musicians also compose or conduct or arrange or all of these as well as play several instruments.

The same thing happens in film studies. Individuals discover that they are writer/directors or producer/directors or director/actors or director/cinematographers or some other combination of tasks rather than concentrating on a single function in the movie industry. Again, they may consider one area primary and others secondary or they may be equally involved in multiple areas or it may vary from project to project.

This also happens in other areas of art. It turns out that people who are artistically talented often are talented in a number of areas. Of course, as in theatre, there are some who are solely interested in a single art, and work to practice only that. However, the number of artists who are talented and proficient in multiple arts is rather extensive. Here’s a quick list: writer/musician, film director/still photographer, comedian/painter, singer-songwriter/photographer, singer/actor, singer/dancer, dancer/choreographer, musician/producer, painter/photographer, actor/director, actor/musician, designer/musician, gourmet chef/glass artisan. Some of these people are famous; some are not so well known. And certainly there are others, but these are the ones that quickly jump to mind.

Unfortunately, there are no rules to finding one’s place in the arts or about deciding which art(s) to practice. If only one art interests you, then practice that art. If you are talented in more than one area, you may well decide that practicing a single art will result in a better income than trying to do multiple things at once, so you concentrate on one art and let the others become hobbies or occasional interests. Of course you can do the opposite: hone your skills in all the areas that interest you, so that you can work in any one when the opportunity presents itself.  Remember that the practice of multiple arts can be either simultaneous or sequential. There is nothing that tells you that you must do it one way rather than another.

Whether you are single- or multi-talented, the real key is to find out where you fit, which approach to the arts fits you best. You may discover that one approach is far more appealing than any of the others, or you may find that your approach to the problem evolves as you practice and grow as an artist. So take some time and evaluate the paths that are available to you; as you work your way through the possibilities, answers will come. And remember, you can always change your mind.

The thing that drives all artists is the need to create. Note that this is not the urge to create or the inclination to create or the want to create, but the need to create. No one seems to know where it comes from, and there is disagreement as to whether everyone has it or just some specific people. Some think it is instinctive, that we are simply born with it. There is no question, however, that some have a stronger need to create than others, and the need seems to express itself in those who have it differently for each individual. Additionally, this need can vary in strength from time to time in an individual’s life. For example, some need to create daily, often extending the work day so they can continue to make whatever it is that they make. Others are less driven and experience the need to create more occasionally. The need can be dormant in some artists for lengthy periods, then express itself forcefully when least expected.

This, of course, can cause some problems for the artist in that they may be busily attending to their everyday life when the need to create expresses itself. That artist may either have to ignore the need or rearrange their life to accommodate it. This can be somewhat off-putting, but is preferable to ignoring the need which can lead to significant mental issues, not the least of which are frustration and depression. If this sounds somewhat irrational, it is. There is really no explanation for the degree of importance the necessity of making something has when the need to create asserts itself. It can throw the artist’s life completely off-balance.

Sometimes artists acknowledge the need to create but when it comes to the actual process of creation, experience “writer’s block”—regardless of whether the artist is an actual writer or some other kind of artist. Writer’s block is, of course, a conflict between the need to create and the inability to produce an artifact. Some say that the answer to writer’s block, whether actual or potential, is having a daily ritual or developing a set of habits intended to ward off writer’s block and thus free the artist to indulge the need to create. Morning Pages are one such ritual that many swear by. There are, of course, others which include the scheduling of time every day or every week to create. Some artists find that they need a special place to really do their best creative work; others combine it with another activity, such as walking or running.

The wise artist will honor the need when it arises. It doesn’t really matter whether the person is a professional artist or someone who creates as a hobby. It doesn’t matter whether one is a full-time artist or a part-time one or whether the art one produces is magnificent or mundane. Neither does it matter whether the artist is prolific or produces relatively few works. What is important is that the need be satisfied. Sometimes that means hardship in that materials are not readily at hand to create the work necessary. There are many stories of visual artists whose need was so great that they painted the rooms in which they lived or of literary artists who were so driven to write that they penned ideas onto matchbooks or toilet paper. Hopefully, we can find some way to allow enough time and obtain minimal materials to allow us to produce in order to satisfy the need when it strikes.

One of the truisms about humans is that we—most of us, anyway—are creatures of habit. The other thing about habits is that they can govern large chunks of our time, or are just perhaps the way some little things get done. Sometimes these habits are purposeful; other times, they sort of sneak up on us.

Purposeful habits occur when we make conscious behavioral decisions about how we spend our time. For example, an artist may decide that they will work only on art in the mornings from 9:00am until 1:00 pm, five days a week, and use the rest of their time for other things. After following this pattern for a while, it becomes ingrained, habitual. It’s something that the artist does without thinking about it. And so, without thinking, the artist works on art at least four hours a day, 20 hours a week, every week without fail. Occasionally the artist may work longer, but never less. Probably this is a good habit, particularly when compared to the artist who works on art whenever the mood strikes, regardless of the time of day. The artist with the habit is likely to be far more productive.

As noted, habits may govern little things as well. Perhaps our artist begins each work session with morning pages. This, according to many, is also a good practice to have, and therefore a good habit to cultivate. It is likely that such an artist will have an off-day, or at least an off-session should they one day neglect to do their morning pages.

And so it goes. Artists develop all sorts of behaviors consciously, behaviors that often turn into habits. All sorts of things become habits whether the artist intends it or not. For example, the first thing the artist does in the morning is have a cup of coffee. It’s a small thing with very few consequences, unless that the artist feels that they need that cup of coffee, and without it, the day isn’t right.

And, of course, there are habits that are considered bad, often associated with the intake of substances that are not healthy. Having a habit is quite different from occasional use. If the artist again needs to intake a substance at the end of each work session, there is likely a problem that will have to be dealt with sooner or later. Also worth mentioning in this category are procrastination and scrolling social media, both of which can become unhealthy habits.

Occasionally, we are forced to change our habits, which is very disconcerting, to say the least. This happened to a number of artists during the pandemic, when a number of us had to completely alter the way that we worked. This was more than unsettling for many of us; it was the equivalent of having our worlds turned upside down. Some of us adapted quickly; others took more time. Before it was over, most of us had replaced our old habits with new behaviors that were well on their way to becoming our new habits.

Then about the time those habits really took hold, the pandemic was over and the world tried to go back to the way things were before. And here we were stuck with pandemic-era habits that really had no place in the post-pandemic world. And a number of us are still trying to make the transition back to a face-to-face world and possibly return to our old habits, even though considerable time has passed.

There are probably many lessons to be learned from this series of events. The ones that seem important to me are that we need to periodically evaluate our habits to determine whether they are indeed helpful or just the way we have come to do things. If we find them lacking, then we certainly should make an effort to change them to behaviors that are more positive. It’s not something that we can’t do. We know that because when it was forced on us, we, all of us, modified our habits to accommodate the situation. So now what we might consider is exercising more control over our daily behaviors—particularly those that we gained unconsciously and especially those that have impact on our art.

Entire books have been devoted to the subject, yet in his book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin says that nobody really knows how or why a work of art is created. “We are dealing in a magic realm. Nobody knows why or how it works,” he writes. We do know, however, some of the steps involved, even though we understand very little about how those steps work.

First comes the idea—but from where? It seems that ideas for art works can come from virtually anywhere: a snatch of conversation overheard in a restaurant, observation of a couple crossing the street, a phrase or snippet of prose, a riff of music, a glance at a picture, a memory, a fragment of a dream. The story goes that the idea the culture-shattering play A Doll’s House came from a brief news article that Henrik Ibsen read. Anywhere. Why one particular idea of the many that an artist encounters in the course of a day intrigues the artist is the mystery here—especially an idea that strikes others as uninteresting or mundane.

Once the artist has the idea, they play with it, which is to say they examine it, look at it from all angles, study the implications, trying to determine if the idea has potential as a work of art. Perhaps they make some scribbles and doodles or perhaps jot some notes or make some sketches, again trying to establish the potential of the idea. The result of this play is the determination that the idea has traction or not. If not, it is discarded, its place taken by another idea and the process begins again. If the idea has traction, the artist will move to the next part of the process. The criteria for this decision are unknown, and probably vary from artist to artist.

Shaping and crafting come next. This stage, at least, has some rules and principles. There are aesthetics to consider, and there are notions about which colors go together and which arrangements of words are acceptable. There are principles of design to consider—or disregard. There are elements of style which may or may not be adhered to. There are key signatures and tempos. This is the stage where parts are added to the idea to make it into a fully-realized work of art. And this is also the stage where pieces are taken away. And there are very few rules about what to add and what to take away. Within the guidelines of the craft of the discipline in which the artist is working, the work is done primarily by instinct and experience, and again no one really knows how the artist does that, only that they do it and shape the work of art before them. During the latter part of this stage, the artist may discover areas of the art work that just do not work; this will demand a reworking of that section and re-integration of that part into the whole. Again this is done by instinct.

Once the shape of the work of art is determined and most pieces incorporated and others removed, comes the polishing of the piece, when the artist examines the work in detail, adding tiny bits here and there, and trimming tiny bits away as well. This is the time when artist effectively finishes the work. Here again, the artist’s own instinct and sensibilities are at work, inexplicably.

Next comes publication of the work. This can mean any number of things, but whichever form it takes, this is the stage where the artist releases the work into the world either by formal publication, or showing the work, or simply making others aware of its existence. The artist may have a predetermined method of showing their work, or may choose a different avenue for each piece.

Not all artists will adhere to the steps outlined here, but most will, although each artist will approach the problem in their own way using their own working methods. What doesn’t change is the mystery of how or why a work of art is created.

In the “Classical Albums” documentary Cream: Disraeli Gears about the blues/rock band Cream, one of the band members talks about the immediate artistic chemistry that the members of the band experienced when they first got together. That chemistry is a thing that all great bands have. In interviews band members talk about how they “click,” then go on to talk about how they feed off of each other when they are creating. It occurs to me that this is true of any artist who is involved in a collaborative art—and some who are not considered traditionally collaborative.

Actors, for example, will often talk about working with other actors and the on-set/on-stage chemistry they experience with those others. They tend to feed off of each other, which ups both of their games. If we look at the body of work of film directors, we find that they tend to do their best work when directing a small number of actors repeatedly. Again the artistic chemistry is what makes that happen.

The same is true of stage directors as well. In my own experience, some of the best work I have done occurred with actors with whom I had worked before. It’s the chemistry—the almost mystical clarity of communication that is experienced between director and actor. It is as if we are all thinking on the same wavelength, so the work becomes unified, and very, very strong. One supposes that it is the fact that we have worked together previously, but that’s not all of it, because it is not true with all actors with whom I have worked before. I think it must have to do with a shared sense of what we are trying to accomplish. This, of course, is not to say that I have not done good work with actors with whom I did not share a mental connection—just that it is more likely that better work will result from working with those with whom I “click.” Other directors report similar experiences.

The same experience is to be had when, as a photographer, I work with models with whom I share chemistry. These turn out to be my favorite models, whom I repeatedly consider for shoots, because, even though others do good work, it is much better, much easier with those who have chemistry, and seem to anticipate direction rather than waiting for it or taking off on some unrelated track. Painters of models probably experience much the same thing.

Even artists traditionally considered non-collaborative, such as novelists, will talk about the rapport they have with their editors or first-readers. It turns out that writing, at least the final stages, in not quite so isolated an art as we may have thought.

And of what use is this information? For one thing, we can come to recognize that we will do better work if we can find partners with whom we share artistic chemistry. Perhaps we can cultivate a small groupof collaborators (or a large one) with whom we naturally connect in order to our best work. Or perhaps, more the more ambitious of us could find ways to develop that connection and establish chemistry with new artists, so that we effectively develop a pool of potential collaborators.

A number of years ago, I posted an article entitled “Artist or Artisan?,” wherein the differences between the two were explored, relying extensively on the ideas of a painter, John Stillmunks. With all the hubbub about artificial intelligence, I thought I would pose the same question to OpenAI via ChatGPT. So I posed the question in this form: “In an essay of approximately 500 words, explain the essential difference(s) between an artist and an artisan. Document all quotations.”

This is the response (which came in seconds):

Artists and artisans are both creative individuals who produce beautiful and functional objects. However, the essential differences between them lie in their purpose, intention, and approach to their craft. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an artist is “a person who practices any of the various creative arts, such as painting, sculpture, music, or writing, to produce works that are primarily aesthetic in nature.” On the other hand, an artisan is “a worker in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making things by hand.”

One key difference between an artist and an artisan is their intention. While both create objects, the artist’s primary intention is to express themselves and communicate a message to their audience. As noted by artist Jasper Johns, “Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.” Art is a means of communicating one’s emotions, ideas, and beliefs through visual, auditory, or literary media. It is a reflection of the artist’s inner world, experiences, and values.

In contrast, an artisan’s primary intention is to create functional objects that serve a specific purpose. Their work is focused on functionality, rather than self-expression or communication. According to artisanal bread baker Chad Robertson, “The goal is not just to make great bread; it’s to make great bread that is accessible to everybody.” The artisan’s focus is on creating well-crafted objects that are useful and serve a practical purpose.

Another important difference between artists and artisans is their approach to their craft. Artists tend to have a more experimental approach to their work, exploring new ideas and techniques to express their creativity. They often work independently, outside the boundaries of traditional artistic styles and techniques. As artist Pablo Picasso once said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” Artists are free to experiment, push boundaries, and create their own unique style.

In contrast, artisans tend to work within the boundaries of their craft, using traditional techniques and methods that have been passed down through generations. According to ceramicist Frances Palmer, “I’m not a ceramic artist, I’m a potter. I make things that are useful.” The artisan’s focus is on mastering their craft and producing high-quality, functional objects that are both beautiful and practical. They often work within established styles and techniques, striving to perfect their skills and achieve excellence in their craft.

In conclusion, while both artists and artisans create beautiful and functional objects, their intentions and approaches to their craft are fundamentally different. Artists focus on self-expression and communication, while artisans focus on functionality and the mastery of traditional techniques. As noted by philosopher R.G. Collingwood, “Art is self-expression; craft is the expression of a tradition.” Both artists and artisans play an important role in our society, enriching our lives through their creative work.

It’s not a bad answer. I find it interesting that ChatGPT took the instruction, “Document all quotations” to mean “include quotations,” even though they were not all entirely relevant. Aside from that, the answer is complete and well organized, if not nuanced. That, of course may be the result of the prompt, which is itself not terribly sophisticated, but then I’m new to AI, and perhaps some massaging of the prompt might have resulted in a more refined answer.

Interestingly, the differences posited by ChatGPt are remarkably similar to those expressed by Stillmunks, although the emphasis is a bit different. And it’s interesting that Stillmunk’s main thesis still holds: “no, not everybody’s an artist (despite what they may think).” But we have to remember that at the end of it, it is still nothing but a label. We are free to cross the line in either direction, depending on the current project. No one ever said that we have to be either artist or artisan all of the time.

The answer is, of course, “as large as possible.” So perhaps a better question is, “when is the audience big enough?” This is a question that in one form or another I have put to a number of artists who work in different media, and the answers reflect both the artist and the media involved. Some theatre artists, for example, say that it depends on the venue while others say that it is a matter of the average audience size for that particular genre in that particular theatre. One director I know says only that there should be more people in the audience than there are on stage.

Visual artists, of course, differ in their answers, and those answers have to do with whether an audience are those who look or those who buy. Musical artists take into consideration the type of music being played, type of amplification, and the acoustics and ambience of the space. Some artists will answer the question with “when it provides enough revenue to break even”—or make a profit. Some artists don’t seem to be concerned with income; they just want to make the art. Every artist, it seems, has a different answer. And perhaps that means that we are once again asking the wrong question.

To get to that, we must ask what artists want from the audience. Is it enough for the audience members to sit through the presentation or look at the work on display, or do we want more? Most artists do want more, but what is the “more” that they want?

If we are trying to get rich, we will give one answer. If we are just trying to make a living from our art, we will give another. If we are trying to do neither, what are we trying to do? Perhaps we should examine our motives for making art in the first place. Are we trying to entertain, create beauty, change minds, challenge political stances, instill empathy, highlight a social problem, impact the audience members in some other way?

Once we can articulate why we are creating art in the first place, then we can better determine when the audience is “big enough.” In other words, how many of our audience will have to “get” what we are saying for us to be satisfied that  our work is successful in what it is trying to achieve? That is, how many must we entertain? How many must perceive beauty? How many must change their political stance? How many begin to understand empathy? How many recognize that social problem? The number, of course, will vary from artist to artist, but it would be well for each artist to know the answer for themselves.

Perhaps a greater problem for artists are that we may never know how many of our audience were impacted by our work in the ways that we intended—or when. (I once sold a piece a full month after the show in which it was shown.) We can, in some instances, discover how popular our work is by the numbers in our audiences or the number of likes we get on social media, but we can never really know who we have actually touched with our work—unless the audience member tells us. The best we can do is to keep our eyes on our goals, continually evaluate our methods and motives, and keep producing work that we are proud to have done.

It’s fairly common knowledge among artists that not everyone will like everything we produce. A piece has to resonate with an audience member to be appreciated, particularly to the point of purchase, and even then it’s a hit-or-miss proposition. Ask any artist who has rented a table at an arts fair and displayed work, or who has tried to get poetry published, or a comic accepted anywhere. In some of those instances there are gatekeepers, while in others, the art is presented directly to the potential audience—either physically or electronically. Still it’s unpredictable who will like what, and even more random when trying to determine who will buy what.

Many of us cannot afford to keep renting art show spaces, or self-publishing with no accompanying marketing effort. But we can’t not show our work; the result of that would be absolutely no sales. So we seem to be caught, and do the best we can—showing our work when opportunities we can afford present themselves, and holding back when we have no affordable alternatives. Given this situation, what are we to do?

Since not everyone is going to like everything we produce, we need to examine the relationship between our work and our potential audience. We need to realize that our work and our audience should match. This realization often leads artists to modify what they do so that what they try to say does appeal to everyone. This, of course, waters down the artist’s voice and, more importantly, the message of the piece.

Rather than modify our art, we would do better to concern ourselves with our potential audience. To increase our chances at finding those who might find our work resonant, we could do one of two things: (1) If we can find an existing potential audience whose members are interested in the sorts of things we have to say, we increase our chances of sales tremendously. (2) Failing that, we might develop an audience whose members are interested in the subject matter of our art.

The first alternative is perhaps a little easier—it means that we don’t enter every art fair we can afford, or show our work in every possible show. Rather, it means that we pick our shows carefully, that we research what sorts of work have been shown in the past and whether there are particular criteria for work that might match our own interests. Show listings are not all that difficult to find on the internet. There are a couple of web sites dedicated to directing artists to shows, and usually the criteria for the shows are clearly stated. This is not something that can be said of most art fairs.

Developing an audience is a more daunting task. However, there are at least a few conferences a year, and a number of books devoted to just that. Admittedly, these are aimed at the live theatre market; however, there is much they can teach artists in all media. Theatre folk are constantly trying to match material that they want to produce with potential audience and determine ways to increase the size of that audience. Some are very successful at it, so there is much they can teach the rest of us.

The point is that once we realize that our art doesn’t have to speak to everyone, the sales/marketing side of our artistic lives become just a little easier. Once we learn to curate and cultivate our audience, we can spend more of our time concentrating on actually making the work that matters to us, and that is the important thing.

With all the current emphasis on branding, many artists are working for consistency instead of developing and evolving. This, of course, causes artists to produce work that is strikingly similar to previous work, and that continues as the brand is built. This process, in turn, causes the artist to be a producer of artifacts which are all similar, rather than a creator of new and wonderful things. Artists then become artisans—and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, except that when one is involved foremost in production, there is little room for growth.

In The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin says:

Though artists generally aren’t aware of it, that end work is a by-product of a greater desire. We aren’t creating to produce or sell material products. The act of creation is an attempt to enter a mysterious realm. A longing to transcend. What we create allows us to share glimpses of an inner landscape, one that is beyond our understanding. Art is our portal to the unseen world.

If this is true, then our job as artists is to enter into this mysterious inner landscape and reveal as much as we can in our work. In order to this we must make our brand not consistency, but exploration and revelation. We must turn our attention away from creating things that look or sound or read alike and toward unearthing new insights, and go wherever that takes us. We must stop avoiding change and discover newness. We must get out of our “own lane” and embrace change. As Jerry Saltz advises:

Artists: Never stay in your own lane. Change styles if you like; switch mediums, materials, whatever. There’s no need for consistency. When people tell you to stay in your lane, they’re trying to hold you back or keep you down. Do whatever you want to do and you do it well.

But if we do that, if we switch up what we are doing, what about our comfort level? There is a certain sense of well-being that accompanies turning out artifacts that are similar. We know what we are doing; the work is not too difficult: we just do what we are used to doing, making a little change here and a little alteration there. Embracing change increases uncertainty, sometimes to the point of discomfort, but that discomfort allows us to evolve and grow—so we become even better artists.

And what about our audience? They are used to seeing/hearing a certain kind of product from us. If we stay with the tried and true path, we get similar results every time and our audience knows what to expect from us. Unfortunately, that can also cause our audience to get bored with us. Whereas, if we embrace change, our audience can be surprised every time we publish a new piece. Yes, we may lose some audience—those who expect the same thing every time. However, we may gain audience, simply because we show them something new with every new piece we make. Soon they will be eager to see what we produce next—our audience may well grow.

We need to consider all of this the next time our inner impulse says that we need to make a change. We need to listen to that impulse. Our growth in art demands it.

It’s difficult to go a day without seeing an article about artificial intelligence. AI has suddenly taken the world by storm. For writing there are ChatGPT, Copymatic, Wordtune, and Anyword. For art, the programs most in demand are Midjourney, DALL-E-2, Dream, and Craiyon. For the music world, there are platforms specifically for music generation, music production, music videos, and music composition.

The specific topics of AI articles are all over the place: many are concerned with students at the high school and collegiate level using AI to do their assignments. A number are detailing specific AI platforms to use to achieve specific results or strategies for using particular AI platforms. A number of articles consider AI just another tool to be used for all sorts of work and embrace its use. Others take the opposite view and deplore the use of AI for creative work, saying that AI products are derivative, an argument that devolves into a copyright debate. Speaking of which, the US Copyright Office has already ruled that AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted.

But few articles have touched on the use of AI for the serious artist, and even fewer on the philosophical argument that such moves by artists would engender. The whole AI argument focuses on product—whether it’s a section of computer code or a freshman term paper or a novel, or a piece of visual or aural art and does not speak to the process of creation. And that, I think, is a sticking point for a number of artists.

Most artists get into art because they want to make things. Some of the things that artists want to make are, of course, not things at all, but experiences: theatre, dance, ephemera of all sorts. It may be that AI is, or will become capable of generating such experiences, but that does not yet seem to be the case, so let’s concentrate on artifact-producing and what AI-produced work does to the creator.

AI changes the role of the artist. In the case of a writer, for example, the writer no longer produces word order that is the product of their brain synapses and the way the writer’s mind associates ideas. Even if the AI is instructed to write in the style of the writer, the role of the writer is changed from creator to instruction-giver/editor and the resulting artifact would be completely different. So long as the writer is okay with that, it could be a successful use of AI and might produce work of a reasonable quality, but most artists I know really are not looking for a change of role or an easier way to do what they do. They would much prefer to be hands-on creators because of what they get out of the process.

For technical writing or production art, AI could be an immense time-saver. However, for creative work, it is difficult to imagine artists being willing to hand over the creative process to a machine, no matter how much time it saved. Many artists are story-tellers, and story-telling is a very different activity from giving instructions about telling a story. As noted, the creative process is just too important to them.

Of course, the ongoing existence and improvement of AI might produce a different kind of artist than we now have—one who wants to be an instruction-giver/editor instead of one who enjoys and appreciates the process of creating every detail. That sounds like science fiction, but so did AI not long ago. Regardless of the change that AI brings, we will continue to have people who want to create, who want to explore the creative process. What that will mean to the future of art, we cannot say, but we can be assured that art will continue and that the audience for art will continue to exist.