• Skip to main content
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer

LAUREEN MARCHAND

  • HOME
  • BIO
    • BIO + CV
    • Artist’s Statement
    • As Seen In
  • ARTWORK
    • View available work
    • Small Wonders (ongoing series)
    • The Sky is Golden
    • Prairie Solitude (ongoing series)
    • Altered Endings
    • Still, Life
    • Luminous Flux (2016-2017)
    • Curve (2015/16)
  • ARTWORK ARCHIVE
    • Beholder (2014)
    • Last Rose and Others (2007)
    • Gathered Roses (2005)
    • Bequest (2002/03)
    • To Fly (1998)
    • Grace (1995 – 1996)
  • EASIER CREATIVE ARTIST MENTORING
    • Easier Creative 1:1 Artist Mentoring
    • Easier Creative Artist Mentoring 1:1 Workshops
    • Mastrius Master Artist Mentoring
    • Testimonials
    • Resources
      • How to Get Into a Gallery
      • Articles for Artists
  • TEACHING
    • Drawing as Seeing
  • CONTACT

Where Are You in Your Artist’s Quest?

March 5, 2016 by Laureen

Blog-studio2016A quest for the future

Each new painting feels like you’re reaching deep into the future. You don’t even know if it’s a future that exists. There are so many possible futures. Yet this painting must take you into some kind of future, because to stay where you are is to die.

And at the same time, you reach into the past. The past is where you came from. If you try to ignore how you got to the place you are now, you can only stay here. And to stay where you are is to die.

The artist’s quest. The hero’s journey. Re-enacted in each new work. Maybe it all feels a bit grandiose if you think, “But I’m only painting a picture. What’s so heroic about that?” But you are using all your skill, all your learning, all the specialness that is you, to create something that didn’t exist before. You will decide to bring a idea to life. You will push back doubt. You will strive to do the best you can do, always. And then at the end of making this painting, whether the wider world appreciates what you have done or not, you will probably begin again. The next time will be that much more difficult, and that much easier.

You will never stop reaching.

Where are you in your artist’s quest? I would love to hear from you in the comments.

*   *   *

This blog is a series of posts from one artist’s life. To receive updates, with stories from the artist’s studio and beautiful images, plus a free printable postcard of one of my most recent paintings, just put your email in the box on the right. Your email address will never be shared.

Know someone who’d like to see this? Please pass it on!

Share
Category: How to be an artist

About Laureen

Previous Post:Letting Imagination Be Freedom
Next Post:Between Life and Art

Copyright © 2025 · LAUREEN MARCHAND · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Mai Theme