Growing in your Artistry means understanding and developing your giftedness.
Do you know what your strongest artistic gifts are? Are you pursuing the development of your skills? Here are some tools to help...

Books:
The Authentic Musician by John Haddix
Talent Is Never Enough: Discover the Choices That Will Take You Beyond Your Talent by John C. Maxwell
Art And the Bible: Two Essays (Ivp Classics) by Francis Schaeffer
Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch


Web:
14 sites to help you practice more effectively - for musicians

the visual thesaurus - for writers

Stories:

On giftedness:

Authentic musicians or artists have a natural talent for music or their art. Now it’s very clear that everyone has certain gifts and talents—and varying degrees of them. Your gifting is unique to you and you have a unique contribution to make. But first you must discover and discern your gifts. You may even learn new things about yourself as you get older!
It’s always healthy from time to time to sit back and assess what you’ve learned about your strengths and weaknesses, gifts and uniqueness, so that you can be wise about where you put your energy.

In my case, I grew up with a somewhat musical family where singing was common and a piano was always available. I also had a brother who was a rather accomplished pianist, and parents and grandparents who had some musical gifts, though not professional. As I watched others play and I listened, it was natural for me to want to play, and it was somewhat enjoyable. Of course, it was also frustrating to play because of my lack of skill and training early on. I also discovered as time went on that while I had a good ear, I was naturally stronger as an instrumentalist than vocalist. In high school I was intrigued by writing music and began to write big band and pop arrangements. I think the direction I went with my gifts could have been different had I been in a different musical environment (e.g.. strings, drums), but the basic ear and passion was there from the beginning. (from The Authentic Musician)





Care to share your story on this topic? Please contact us!