Saturday, July 30, 2011

Efforts of Multi-Talented Artists

Voodoo Ronnie
© Ronnie Wood
It has often been said that everyone is born with a talent. It has also been said that being born with a talent is not enough to succeed. The discipline required to advance skills in applying given talents is a major ingredient to doing great things.

Exceptional creative people who become well known and praised for their work leave their mark in some form on the culture and are personally recognized chiefly because of the products of their efforts. The operative word in the last sentence is “efforts.” The artistic achievers in the visual arts, performing arts, literature and all other creative endeavors are talented, yes. But it also takes a passionate technician with high standards to mold and mature the innate talents with which they began.

Anyone who knows, or knows of, an accomplished artist will also know well of that artist’s drive to master the skills required to express their creative visions. Hard work, focused effort and discipline can occupy up to 98% of that artist’s time which precedes the 2% of perfection in the sound of their guitar or voice, the emotion of a character they portray on screen, the captivating flow of narrative in a short story they have written.

Rod Stewart
© Ronnie Wood
Discipline to reach excellence in an artist’s chosen medium of expression during their career becomes intrinsic to who they are, so when an artist becomes interested in another medium the transference of their drive to refine the skills that are required in a second talent becomes second nature. The “language” and tools of one form of art have their counterparts in another form of art. The accomplished “student” of an already mastered form becomes the devoted student of the next, learning to manage, apply, and finally communicate with facility in the adopted language and medium using the tools that are expressly required in that new art form. High standards, passion, vision, strict adherence to technique are pulled into alliance to the high degree a thoughtful artist requires.

The Faces
© Ronnie Wood
Our ongoing intent at the San Francisco Art Exchange is to present the art and photography of creative people known chiefly for their accomplishments in music, acting, and other products of the mind, imagination and human creativity. Among our chief motivators as purveyors of art are our professional need to regularly highlight avenues toward discovery, to edify to the best of our abilities and to expand the perception of how popular patterns are traced into our cultural record. Part of trying to fulfill these self-defined goals as it concerns artists who are talented in more than one art form is to both enthusiastically praise the artists themselves and their accomplishments, while at the same time offer, in effect, mirrors to visitors to our downtown San Francisco gallery and our website. These mirrors, in the form of accomplished talented individuals, hopefully reflect what is be possible when personal passion and the discipline to develop skills are taken to heart and mind. After all, it is often said that everyone is born with a talent.