Do you want to be an artist?

My sister-in-law, got into pottery a few years back. Bought a wheel, set it up, started throwing. So did her kids. Every Christmas, we would get some turquoise clay creation. It looked like everybody's first pottery -- lumpy, cheerful, homey.

Five years went by.

The pots became masks, halibut soap dishes, tea pots. Not lumpy any more, and starting to be hung on people's walls.

Two more years.

Suddenly, she's discovered her own form of Raku, a wild hand-of-god force that creates fantastic riven pottery. The rough dark vase in my Christmas box, necklaced with jewels, is breathtaking. The income from their garage -- including pottery, commissions, teaching, and sales -- has risen to a seriously respectable level.

She is an artist who did her woodshedding, as the jazz musicians would say. She put in the time. It helped that she had already gotten her education and teaching degree. Those helped her learn the business, as well as the art side. It also helped to have a breadwinner during those first three years. What helped most is that she kept going back to the wheel.

Zen master Katagiri Roshi says,

Make positive effort for the good. Do not get tossed away.

I have been walking into rehearsal rooms as long as my sister-in-law. has been sitting at her wheel. My first scenes and plays looked like her first pots; mostly turquoise. Maybe all art is turquoise until you abandon to the gods.

Katagiri again --

You must decide:
Do you want to be an artist?
Or do you want to let everything fall away and devote yourself to art?