Monday Musings | Falling in Love with the Craft

In 2010, on a street in New Orleans, Lenny Kravitz overheard a local choir performing one of his songs by chance. His pace quickened, a little jump in his step, and he ran to join them.

He clapped along, jumped onto the drums, eventually taking the microphone – – just called by his love for the music and the serendipity of that sweet moment.

Lenny Kravitz sings with the VOP Choir in New Orleans for “Fly Away” – 2010.

A man who sells out arenas and has gone one tour, still humble enough and so truly in love with the art of music – that he felt mesmerized by the rhythm and joined in.

Falling in love with your craft, whether that means creating a photographic image or performing music to a handful of people in New Orleans, is one of the enduring truths that we share as artists.

“It is not enough to know your craft – you have to have feeling.
Science is all very well, but for us imagination is worth far more.”
– Edouard Manet

Honing your skills, developing your style, reading every book and blog post you can find, spending hours practicing, and accepting that your growth as an artist is an everlasting journey that will last for the rest of your life… That’s falling in love with the craft.

Trying to sleep the night before a wedding with the buzz and anticipation rushing through you, not only the first time, but on the fiftieth wedding and the hundredth wedding… That’s falling in love with your craft.

Feeling the places where small calluses have formed on your hands, the worn knobs on your first camera, and that desire to always remember where you started… That’s falling in love with the craft.

Being an artist means falling in love with the craft and refusing to ever abandon your pursuit of self-expression and purpose.

Knowing your craft is important. Putting your heart and soul into that expertise, daring to dream and imagine, and allowing yourself to fall in love with the art of creating images… That’s what it truly means to fall in love with the craft.