What makes a good artist? Education or life experience

A friend asked me, What makes a good artist? Education or life experience. My first thought was wow! What a great question. My second thought was a bit of both but more influenced by life experience than education. As an artist, we project our life experiences through our art. It is often a reflection of ourselves and how we perceive the world. I can’t teach you life experience, it is something you have to, well, experience on your own. I can influence your life experiences, but I can’t control how you perceive them outside of some brainwashing techniques. What can be learned is how to express how your life experiences through your art. The more I think about the question the more I question my first thoughts. Is it like, “what makes a good meal?” or “what is art?”.

I do believe that as an artist, we give the world a peek inside our minds, thoughts, and perceptions. But, we can also hide our real thoughts and perceptions through our art. Look at the artists who were perceived as happy, funny, and joyful by their art but were truly suffering in their minds. I believe we have more than one personality and we put forth the one we want the world to see often hiding our true selves to our minds only.

Pondering this question reminded me of the lyrics of a song by Chicago, “Does anyone really know what time it is” because in the song it really questions if we pay attention to the world around us, including the small things, or do we just move along to the next “big” thing. Do we really let the world know us or do we hide our true selves from the world and project only what we believe the world wants us to share?