Voice And Heart

Find your voice.

I’ve heard these words a thousand times as an artist, beginning the moment I entered art school, and I’m hearing it a thousand thousand times more as a writer.

The artists and writers whose work inspires and teaches me have distinctive voices.  Show me a painting or read me a story by one of these people, and I will tell you who created it.  It’s their voice moving through the work, the unique combination of all the choices they made while painting or writing, that shows me.

But voice is more.

There is a part of voice not easy to define.  For me, it distills down to the feel of the work as a whole.  No, that’s not quite right.  It’s not the feel of the work.  It’s how I feel when I experience the work.

Voice isn’t voice.  It’s heart.

My voice is the heart of me, my truest self.  My voice is my heart expressed, visible, and shared.  Voice in my art and writing connects me to you, heart to heart.

Finding your voice is finding your heart.  It’s finding what you love and beginning there.  It’s finding what gives you joy when you create.

If a beginning artist or writer asked me for advice on finding their unique voice, I would tell them it already exists within them.  It is their heart, their truest self.

Create true to your heart and you have found your voice.