Plumbing the Depths

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Awakening II 26 x 48” Watercolor John Hulsey

Something I read recently stirred up some old feelings and fundamental thoughts I had nearly forgotten about what it is to choose a life of making art. Daniel J. Levitin describes his worries as a young music student in his best-selling book, This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession:

“What if I took a scholarly approach to studying music and, in analyzing it, stripped it of its mysteries? What if I became so knowledgeable about music that I no longer took pleasure from it?”

He goes on to relate that after many years of study and research, he still gets as much pleasure from listening to music as he ever did and that the mysteries have only broadened and deepened for him over the years, not the reverse.

My own experiences as a young art student were similar but with a twist. While our professors were enthusiastic about art history, especially that of postwar America, and loved to espouse ana…