When people have said to me, "Oh! You're so talented " I've shrugged it off. Then as years went by, annoyance replaced dismissal, because I felt that I've had to work so hard for whatever I have achieved in the way of art. Drawing has been difficult for me; I have and continue still, to struggle with it (though it is getting easier).

It was as though these people were putting everything down to a magic gift called talent, as though I had nothing to do with it. It also implied that anyone with this thing called talent could be an artist, without any other effort required. I had decided that to these people, anyone who could draw more than a stick person, was talented. They would say, "I can't draw" or "I couldn't do that!" and I'd always think, "Well, you could if you would only try, or if you wanted to!"

But over the years, I have taught an occasional student who just had that certain something-extra we call talent. I also see movie stars and musicians who have that special something in their way, and in their voices, that could only be called talent.

I've decided that there is such a thing as talent, that it is a gift, and that one either has it or one doesn't.
I've seen talent wasted by not using it. In this case it goes away and is lost as if one never had it. I've watched others