An Artist Muses

Anyone pursuing a career in the arts will know that some form...any form...of monetary reward is a sacred goal.  Not only is it validating that the general public will part with actual money for your work, it's a brute reality that without financial means the art career will necessarily cede to a more banal but lucrative occupation.  Sometimes the pursuit of sales can be all-consuming.  Before I joined that hunt full-time, I remember chatting with one of my hockey buddies who happened to be a successful commercial artist.  At the time (I was still an amateur) he said he envied me because for me art was still a passion.  For him, he had turned his passion into a profession and at times he thought perhaps that was a mistake.  I naturally didn't heed that advice for a second, and so I too joined the fray of creating art that will "sell" and thus reap many monetary rewards. But what I've learned along the way is that there are many 'rewards beyond'