5 Artists, 5 Truths About Making Art

There’s a moment every artist knows. You’re in the middle of your work maybe things are going well, maybe they’re falling apart and someone says something. Just one line. Sometimes it’s a mentor. Sometimes it’s a stranger on the internet. Sometimes it’s something you read at 2am when you were about to give up. And something in you just… shifts. The way you see your work changes. The way you see yourself changes. That one piece of advice becomes the before and after of your creative life.

We’ve been thinking about that moment a lot lately. Because here at Arts to Hearts Project, we talk to artists every single day. Through our magazine, our podcast, our exhibitions, our community and what we’ve noticed is that behind almost every artist’s growth story, there’s a piece of advice sitting quietly at the centre of it. Something someone said that they never forgot.

Arts to Hearts Project was built for exactly this. Not just to celebrate finished work, but to hold space for the real, human journey of making it. The doubts, the breakthroughs, the advice that changed everything. We are a community first and communities share their wisdom.

So we asked ours. And what came back was more beautiful than we expected.

The first one and honestly our favourite came from AnnMarie @leblanc_annmarie. She dropped this in our comments, and we genuinely couldn’t move past it.

And isn’t it true? Think about it. One painting whether it’s your best work or your worst, does not tell the whole story of who you are as an artist. It never did. It never will.

Someone said this to Ann-Marie once. And she passed it on to us. And now we’re passing it on to you. Because this is the kind of advice that deserves to be read by every single artist and we weren’t about to let it get lost in a comment section.

We cannot tell you how many artists we’ve spoken to talented, hardworking, deeply feeling people who quietly gave up because one piece didn’t work. One bad show. One collection that didn’t land. One comment from someone who probably forgot they said it by the next morning. And yet that artist carried it for months. Sometimes years.

Stop letting a single painting have that much power over you. It genuinely doesn’t deserve it.

And then came this one from Erica Vojnich @artworkbyerica And honestly, it hit differently.

We love this because it’s not just advice it’s a reality check. And sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

We live in a world that constantly tells artists to think about their audience. To create for the market. To make work that sells, that performs, that gets saved and shared. And look none of that is wrong. But somewhere in all of that noise, it’s so easy to lose the most important person in the room. Yourself.

Erica is saying something that sounds simple but takes real courage to actually live by make art for you first. Not in a selfish way. But in the way that keeps you honest. Keeps you authentic. Keeps you making the work that only you can make. Because when you start creating to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one least of all yourself.

And the jealousy part? That’s real too. Authenticity makes people uncomfortable. Staying true to yourself when the world wants you to fit a mold is genuinely threatening to people who haven’t done that work yet. So if someone’s coming for your art take a breath. It might just mean you’re doing something right.

Our third favourite is from Maria Plata @rootsofimmokalee One we think every artist has needed to hear at some point in their journey.

We don’t talk about this enough.

There’s this unspoken pressure in the art world to make things that feel good. That look beautiful. That people want to hang on their walls and feel comfortable around. But art has always been one of the most honest ways humans process the things that are too heavy for words. The grief. The anger. The things that happened that you don’t quite know how to say out loud yet.

This is permission to go there. To tell the hard story. The painful one. The one you’ve been sitting on because you weren’t sure anyone would want to see it. The work that comes from that place the honest, uncomfortable, vulnerable place is almost always the work that makes someone feel less alone.

And that is the whole point of art, isn’t it?

Here’s our fourth. From Laura Vitali @lauravitali_art. We read this one and immediately thought, why does nobody tell you this from the very beginning?

Because nobody tells you this. Nobody sits you down at the beginning of your art journey and says hey, most of what you make is going to be bad. And that’s not just okay. That’s the whole process.

We put so much pressure on every single sitting. Every canvas has to mean something. Every piece has to be portfolio worthy. And when it’s not and it often isn’t we take it personally. We think it means something about our talent. Our future. Whether we should even be doing this at all.

But Laura is saying something so quietly radical here. The bad paintings are not the failure. The bad paintings are the road. You cannot get to the masterpiece without going through them first. Every artist you admire has a pile of work they’ll never show anyone. That pile is not their shame it’s their foundation.

So sit down. Make the bad painting. And then make another one. The magic is in there somewhere. You just have to paint your way to it.

And THEN there was this. Our fifth and final. From Lydia fairy @lydiafairymakesart And when we read it we thought yes. This is exactly how we want every artist to feel walking into their studio tomorrow.

Do you see what she did there? Both outcomes are a win. Good painting — yay. Bad painting — also yay. Because either way you showed up. Either way you made something. Either way you are an artist who is doing the thing.

We spend so much time in our heads before we even pick up the brush. Calculating. Worrying. Wondering if today is going to be a good day or a bad day. But Lydia is saying it doesn’t matter. Just sit down and play. Treat it like a child treats a box of crayons. No agenda. No pressure. Just making.

And honestly? After everything these five artists shared with us this felt like the most perfect note to end on. Because at the end of the day, that’s what art is. It’s play. It’s showing up. It’s making something out of nothing and saying yay. I did that.

A huge thank you to @leblanc_annmarie, @artworkbyerica, @rootsofimmokalee, @unfold.designandartistry, @lauravitali_art and @lydiafairymakesart you showed up in our comments with your whole hearts and we are so grateful. This community never stops surprising us. In the best possible way.

And here’s what we noticed after reading every single comment.

Nobody talked about technique. Nobody mentioned the right brush or the perfect colour palette or how many hours you should be painting a day. Every single piece of advice that stayed with us every single one was about how you talk to yourself. How you show up for yourself. How kind you are to yourself when the work is hard and the results aren’t what you hoped for.

That’s the real practice. Not just the painting. But the relationship you build with yourself as an artist.

And that’s exactly why Arts to Hearts Project exists. Because we believe every artist deserves a community that reminds them of that. A place where the conversation goes deeper than likes and followers and what’s trending. A place where we talk about the real stuff.

So keep making things. Keep showing up. Keep playing.

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Drop your answer whenever we ask. You might just find yourself in our next article.

This community is built on real artists sharing real stories. And there’s always room for yours.