BEING AN ARTIST AND MAKING ART are not the same. One is self-conscious, the other is directed outward, as Jacques Maritain observed, to the good of the work—to the perfection of the work of one’s hand (if you are a visual artist) in its service to the eye and a cultivated sensibility. The first is largely a theatrical posture, the second is a commitment to something larger, more enduring than oneself. That something, it is hoped, graces its time in some incalculable way. Continue Reading
