Fame

I gave up a fairly successful career as an illustrator and portraitist in New York to come and live full time in in this small cottage in France. I tell my friends that I committed financial and professional suicide by doing this, yet I have no regrets.

I subscribe to Robert Genn's bi-weekly internet newsletter, and a few days ago, fame and celebrity were his subject. Two quotes made an impression on me:

Winslow Homer noted, "The most interesting part of my life is of no concern to the public."

Henry Miller wrote that art's purpose is to transform the artist. An idea is absorbed by the body's cells, digested, and worked through his entire system, after which the artist is transformed like a butterfly, but the art itself is like dung. He was embarrassed to give his books to people because they were dung.

I think I want to become a butterfly.