The first skill: Imagination.

Of all the skills an artist may or may not have the most basic, and the
most important, is imagination.

This is the one that makes us an artist in the first place. Without it
nobody is an artist. It might even be thought not to be a skill which
can be developed, but a gift, or a god-given talent. WITH this gift,
nothing will stop you from being an artist. Prose, poetry, novels,
screenplays, musical composition, choreography, sculpture, painting,
comic strips, moviemaking, architecture, sandcastles; the imagination
will express itself.

This is the heart of art, of which the photopainters and the mechanical
renderers know nothing. This is Shakespeare, Beethoven, Turner, Rodin.
And this is the approach that we have chosen, or which has chosen us.

If you have this gift of the imagination, apart from real physical
distress, what can limit you? If you were to lose your sight, you would
tell the stories, and if you were to lose your voice, you would play
the music. Degas was blind, and Beethoven deaf, but the imagination
flowed through. Even if we were unable to communicate, as long as we
were able to fight the demons of loneliness, we would simply enjoy the
passing show.

My next note, hopefully, will be on the nature of imagination, and ways
of tuning in to the mind of God (or the collective subconscious).

With all our problems, let's not forget to be grateful for being who we
are.