What is a success?

How do we quantify a successful art career?  By sales? Vincent Van Gogh only saw the sale of one of his paintings. By influence?  How can we tell if we have made a lasting impact if we aren’t around to see it?  What makes an artist successful? 

You might consider looking at why someone creates art and for how long.  Back to Vincent, he created over 900 images in his lifetime.  How long did he live?  Only 37 years.  Grandma Moses painted over 1500 pieces and she only painted the last 23 years of her life. 

Sometimes I sit and consider how much time I wasted because I started my art career in 2012.  I then take into consideration that I started at 44.  I have done around 700 drawings, paintings in pastel and in other mediums in 12 years.  That is almost 60 images a year.  Do I consider myself a success? Not yet.  Some of my followers might think I am being hard on myself but I need to understand what I consider being successful.  That is where the term success starts, with me. 

You can’t define success the same way as everyone else. I’m still working on what I think makes me a success.  My father struggled with the idea of being a success his whole life.  My mother once said, “He was taught that if he crossed off everyone else’s expectations, he would be happy.  It didn’t work.”  There is more to that story that requires a good dinner, some sipping wine and quiet conversation. I will say; I don’t think he ever felt that successful. 

I can tell you that success to me should feel comfortable, but not complete.  I hope that when I die, I still have some puzzles to solve, techniques to learn, and things to paint.  I don’t want to push for the rest of my life, but I still want to have questions to be answered.  I would say that I want to perish in the middle of living.  Maybe that is my measure of success.  Perhaps, like Van Gogh; I may never know how successful I really was.