I’m sure all of us can agree it is a blessing when one’s passion and career path come together. How fun to be able to do what you love and make a living at it all the while. What a treat!

We have talked many times about the passion we have for our art. No matter what kind of art you partake in if you do it on a regular basis it can be considered your passion. Even as an observer it can fit the bill here. If you are a supporter, an observer if you will, something can mean enough to you to become a passion. But the people who also do art as a career indeed have something special.

Many of us teach. When we teach art, it is hard to separate the art from the teaching. Because, most of us are still artists along as we teach. It is rather difficult to describe to someone who has not experienced this. Of course, there is the art of teaching pedagogy, that is expected of anyone who teaches. But when you combine the arts with that, there is a sense of understanding not just of the teaching, not just the art, but of life. There is something else there with this that stands apart from all of the rest.

Think for a moment if there was anyone in your school career that taught you art. It may have been a high school art teacher, college teacher, or maybe an elementary teacher who really took the time to talk about, display, and teach the students about the art world. If you had anyone in your past like that, I would be willing to bet you remember them. Because they gave you something more than just the teaching. They passed along their passion.

Many of us experience this gift in music. Band, orchestra, choral teachers all share this gift with their students. Did you ever notice how demonstrative and impassioned a choral director looks when conducting their singing group? Or an orchestral conductor’s intense gaze and physical involvement with the music as he or she is on that conductor’s stand? This is that something they give to their students.

I’m sure that passion that was so lovingly passed along to you still lives when you make your art today. That is why we always come back to it, why it means so much and is in the fabric of our souls. That is what makes us artists.