THE ART OF HEART
(C)Bob Perrin 2007
In general, to be taken as a serious artist, you must be either extremely colorful in your lifestyle, extremely talented in your chosen field of artistic expression, own a small country, or be six feet under. Even at that, these things cannot absolutely guarantee you will ever be recognized as a meaningful artistic soul.
There is however one last element that almost guarantees your success as an artist, its called "Heart". Without heart your chances of success are severely limited. You must live and breathe your dream. It keeps you awake at night and wakes you in the wee hours of the morning. It is unrelenting, disturbing, disruptive and inconvenient. It takes your breath away and leaves you craving for more.
Artistic expression must be painstakingly nurtured over time with tolerance, love, hope and understanding. It must be recognized early enough to encourage an artist that is unsure and lacks confidence in their work, and If you are the artist yourself, you should never ever doubt your ability to be creative. There are vast differences in artistic styles and tastes, but every piece should be an extention of the artists own heart. Your own heart. The heart that is about to create a great piece of art. Your art will find its place in this world through your creativeness, and will find its market on the wings of your enthusiasum and determination. Someone will always see in your art, what you intended for them to see, and usually much more. My passion is photography, so I'll use it as an example to illustrate my point.
Anyone who has children, can immediatly identify with this image. It brings to the surface, the wandering dreams of almost everyone on the planet at one time or another, and the real life stories I've been told when someone sees this image have at times surprised me but always warmed my soul. Her name is Nakowa, and she is to say the least, a handful, a whirling ball of energy looking for her next big adventure, always moving, and never ever still.
As you may have guessed, she also was always threatening to run away from home, an adventure she had yet to muster the courage to do. Well that day soon came, and she set off down the street on her next big adventure. Now you have to understand children to be able to cope with a child like Nakowa, she was running away and that was that! and any attempt to stop her would only serve to encourage her to actually carry out her threat.
A little dose of reverse child psychology was in order here. We gathered her up, kicking and screaming and brought her home (by now she had made it out the door) and told her if she really wanted to run away, she was going to need a few things to take with her.
We made a little bundle on a stick and told her that her clothes were in it and drove her out to the local train station. I think by this time Nakowa was having some second thoughts to say the least, but was too stubborn to let on. We told her that maybe she should eat something before she left on her very.... long.... journey, as it maybe a while before she might be able to eat again. Well, to make a long story short, after all this getting ready stuff,she was so tired of the idea of running away that she fell asleep. Then it hit me like a brick. I was standing in exactly the same train station that my dad had taken me to when I pulled the same bluff years earlier. If ever there was a "Kodak Moment" this was it.
We drove home, got a ladder and my camera and drove back to the train station to shoot this image. A little ice cream goes a long way when you are taking pictures of children, especially when there is some setting up to do. To this day, over thirty years later, this image continues to be my best selling print. It has heart in it..."my heart".
