With the explosions in communication and transportation, we are caught up in a faster and faster pace of life. A consequence is that time to oneself is elusive and often sacrificed.

The artist is one of the few individuals, who not only has the luxury of being able to take his time, but for whom it is absolutely necessary. The art avocation requires time; to see, to think, to learn, to practice, and to express, over and over. The price the artist pays for this time is solitude.

"The work of a man is the explanation of that man... Artists, having lost all of their savagery, having no more instincts, one could even say imagination, went astray on every path... they act only as a disorderly crowd, they feel frightened like lost ones when they are alone. That is why solitude must not be advised for everyone, since one must have strength to bear it and to act alone" (62)
Gauguin
 

61. Quote by Pablo Picasso, Hans L.C. Jaffe, Pablo Picasso, (N.Y., Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1964), p.9
62. Lesley Stevenson, Gauguin, (Bison Books Ltd. London, 1990), p.25