On getting out of your own way to allow for magic

Visual Artist Reginald Madison discusses his early artistic discoveries, the importance of good energy in the studio, sticking with it, and why passion is everything.

But in our neighborhood, there was an overflow of aspiring artists, musicians, writers. And I just thought they were the hippest, coolest people on earth. And that got me first interested to paying attention to art. My following experiences that got me to act on it were sort of serendipitous accidents of life. So, there was no strong hankering at first. I just found myself down with it and so on. Thereafter, I got the bug and it just stuck. And I knew, that’s what I wanted to do.

Visual artist Reginald Madison on getting out of your own way to allow for magic

 

What wisdom would you share with your younger self, or younger artists out there?

That experience is a real one in me right now. I’ve had a lot of experience with at least sharing it with younger artists, which is the equivalent of myself. That’s how I see it, about how to proceed making art. So, I got to go deep on that one.

You know if it’s for you, if you stay with it. If you don’t, it wasn’t for you. That really has been my stay to it statement because now I’ve had other young artists who come to me and that’s what I say to them. Let’s see what you’re doing in four years. And if you’re still painting, now we can talk. But before that, I can’t tell you anything because I don’t know how you feel.

What happened to me was, in my neighborhood when I was asking older artists about painting. You know the answer I got? Come back to me after a couple years or after you’ve been painting. It was good advice. It was great advice. But it broke my heart at the time. I thought, “They could help me. Why won’t you help me?” And they’re saying, “If it’s for you, it’ll stay with you.” And it’s true. It’s true. So, I guess that’s my number one thing I would say is keep at it. If it’s for you, you’ll make a way with it. And otherwise you won’t. I’ll admit it, but I probably shouldn’t admit it, I don’t have what I’d call skills or talent. I don’t have any of that shit. Nothing signified that I should have gone in this direction. I do have passion and that has been my thrust all along. I’ve always been passionate about it, struggling with it. And for me, passion runs right through skill and talent. Any of those things without passion is flat. Passion is the thing. It’s what makes you go. It fills it up. Otherwise, you’re just making marks.

 

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