“The Champ,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 26″ x 20″

*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity.  In this nature of its origin lies the judgment of it:  there is no other.  Therefore, my dear sir, I know of no advice for you save this:  to go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create.  Accept it, just as it sounds, without inquiring into it.  Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist.  Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what recompense might come from outside.  For the creator must be a world unto himself and find everything in himself and in Nature to whom he has attached himself.    

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, Translated by M.D. Herter Norton

Comments are welcome!