‘Answers are Everywhere, it is a Good Question that is Hard to Come By.’

Question from Laila Rezai

Laila Rezai - UNSCRIPTED PEONY - COLLAGE & ACRYLIC ON WATERCOLOR PAPER

Question from Laila Rezai - lailarezaiart.com
“If you could be mentored by a deceased artist(s), who would you choose?”

I have always been mentored by a large community of dead artists. I study their works, I read what they have said. When I have a problem, I go to the art and see how this or that artist solved that problem and then come up with my solution informed by my predecessors. If I don’t have a particular question, I will just study the work and see what insights I can gain from it and think about what they are doing and why they are doing it, and how they did it and why it is like this or like that. Does it refer to someone else’s work that they are commenting on? I’ll go look at that artist and see what was worth paying attention to it. I will read and see who is following who and who admires who and then I will try to figure out why. I consider that being mentored. In the end all artists are self-taught.

One of my early art teachers once said; ‘Answers are everywhere, it is a good question that is hard to come by.’

Formulating a good question is how we focus our mind on something with the expectation of finding a solution. A good question also will cause us to examine our assumptions that lead to the question.

Once you come up with a good question it is often hard to come across anyone who can give you the right answer to it, or at least the answer you are inwardly looking for that will satisfy. Even with a good question there could be many different plausible answers. Each artist must find the answer that feels right and true to themselves. Others with the same question will come up with a wide range of answers based on where they are on their own personal inner trail.

As time goes by the answers may change and one might find that the question was not quite right and have to find a more subtle, penetrating question. All of us can only see what our inner development allows us to see. We, through engagement and practice, have to grow into the questions and have the strength to accept and act on the answers. All of this comes with time. The doors don’t open until we have arrived at them.