So how can you tell a Degas from a Cassatt from a DaVinci? If you have some familiarity with art or art history, you can tell the artists' work apart by a combination of their subject matter, their technique (application), and their medium. The interesting thing is that these different factorsvo are all dependent on the uniqueness of each individual artist.
Now this doesn’t apply to just painting or sculpture. In music, think about the uniqueness of, say, Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Madonna, Johnny Cash, Loreena McKennitt, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B King, Bing Crosby, and Prince. Each has his or her own unique sound that is a combination of things like their voice, the instruments they play, the style of their music, volume, rhythm, and individual personalities. The point is that these are musical artists that have such a highly-developed, unique sound or auditory presence that after listening to just a couple of bars of a song, you can immediately identify them. Just seeing their name in print can make their songs start playing in your head! And just try to imagine Johnny Cash singing a Prince song – while he could sing the lyrics and play the music, it would still be a uniquely Johnny Cash song – he couldn’t sound like Prince even if he tried.
What I want you to see is the value of developing your own unique “voice” in your work. You can do it, but you need to let your intuition, your inner voice, your Spirit, or even God (if you so believe), guide you. You need to be free to let your true self out in your work. You need to be courageous enough to let your true creative voice out for all the world to see. And you need to consciously think about what it is you love, and how to bring that into your work.
In my opinion, this is the most powerful work that ever gets created – it may not be technically the most accomplished painting on the wall (although sometimes they are), but these paintings have “Soul,” “Power,” or “Presence.” You know them when you see them. They almost jump right off the wall when displayed in a group of other, more "usual" paintings. Sometimes we get emotional when viewing them.
You also need to quiet your inner critic in order to let your vision out in your art. Your inner critic is that little voice that tells you “You can’t do that” or “That will never succeed.” It’s the inner naysayer, always trying to keep you “safe” and lost in the crowd of artwork that looks the same. And you may need to ignore those very real people in your life who are telling you the same thing.
The upside of developing your Creative Voice is that your work will stand out from the other, "usual" artwork. No longer will you hear people say “just another landscape” or “just another photo” or “just another floral” about your work. By developing your own Voice, you make your work stand out and ultimately may increase your sales potential.
This post copyright Nancy Rynes, 2010. No part of this post may be reproduced in any form without written permission of Nancy Rynes.
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