Stealing or Borrowing?

If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out.

Louis Armstrong

Today's post from Robert Genn is a good one. He's talking about painting, but it applies to anyone who aspires to be an artist- here is the part of his post that 'whacked me aside my head'~

Certain personality types, in my observation, have a better chance than others (of success at becoming artists). To test yourself against my findings, give yourself a score of one to ten on the following twelve items. You don't have to score well on all. Out of a possible score of 120, if your score is over 70 you'll be a likely candidate for a life in art.

*curious

*philosophical

*passionate

*energetic

*obsessive-compulsive

*self-motivated, entrepreneurial

*loner, non-joiner, outsider

*hard worker

*patient

*exhibitionistic

*egoistic

*individualistic, resistant to prior programming

The personality traits listed above all sidestep the possibilities of innate talent. Curiously, many with loads of talent don't make it. Talent only completes the equation. While many may have some primal facility in drawing, color or composition, talent may be more the combination of some of those twelve personality traits.

In all honesty, my score isn't all that great on some of his points, but in others I sure make up the deficit (and I admit the traits I excel in are probably not ones to be proudly bantered about, sigh...) I lack passion and energy, and am less than self-motivated and entrepreneurial, like you didn't know this already. So, there ya go. The Louis Armstrong quote was Genn's too, how perfect it that!

Apologies for yesterday's ranting, I was so frustrated without my electricity! TY took me out to dinner and we drank a bottle of wine killing time and hoping when we got home that the place would be all lit up- 8 PM, we had our power back so we were without it 12 hours which is about 6 hours after someone should have taken a tranquilizer dart out at me. (Add 'patient' to my negative traits too!) If I could have simply gotten out of the garage and gone somewhere, if it would have not been so cold and rainy, if I hadn't planned on doing all electrical 'things' I might have been in a better frame of mind. But, on the other hand, we discovered a close-by new restaurant and had a great meal at the bar.

So today will also rain but if I play my cards right I'll go get the car out early *just in case* Nstar's work isn't done, whatever that might be. And then I will come back inside and sequester myself in the former studio, now 'the room where I keep the sewing machine'.

And yeah, I know, no pictures. Bad me.