"If you really want to upset your parents?go into thearts!"-Kurt Vonnegut

How many times have people been told that "You can'tmake it as an artist."

How many times when you've told someone that you arestudying theater, dance, the visual arts, do people look atyou and cringe; feel sorry for you, and feel that you and yourfamily have wasted a great deal of money, and that you havewasted years of your life.

How often when you tell people that you are involved in thearts, do people feel sorry for you because you won't be ableto find a job or make it in the "real world".

A vocation has been described as "something you can't notdo."

Frederich Buechner has defined vocation as "the placewhere your deep gladness meets the world's deep need."

A very wise man, Harold Babcock, has this to say, "Vocationis not simply about doing, but, at a much deeper level, it isabout being. It is about what Thomas Merton called "one'strue self," that self that one is really meant to be, and that noone else can be." Vocation is not always something wechoose, much as we might like to thinks so; rather, it isoften something which chooses us."

An artistic vocation, sharing your beauty, depth, insight andwisdom with the world, is both a gift and a responsibility.People who have an artistic vocation often have havingdifferent priorities than other people. It means that having afancy car, expensive house, designer clothes, is not asimportant as doing "the thing you can't not do."

If you have a vocation as an artist, you are not different fromthe world, but rather you have been given an extraordinarygift, one that requires dedication, focus, courage,perseverance and hard work. Art is not for the faint of heart.

© Mary Baker 2005

Mary Baker is a contemporary realist painter, whose studiois in Newburyport, Massachusetts. This New England city,north of Boston, has been the inspiration for the artist'srealistic oil paintings. Mary Baker is a professional artist andhas shown in New York art galleries. Mary's art work haspassion, depth and beauty, capturing moments in time thatmany people pass by.

Mary Baker hopes that if you have a vocation in the arts thatyou will share your artistic gifts and artistic voice and bedelighted that your art brings much needed beauty, depth,wisdom and integrity to the world.

You can visit Mary's website, Mary Baker Art, at http://www.marybakerart.com , see her beautiful paintings and read her comments oncreativity, the creative journey, the creative process, Tips onBreaking the Creative block, Art, Artists and Money, andcreative space-the illuminating silence.