Practice makes me better at what I do. Not perfect; not even superb. But better.

What it utterly fails to do is to make me a better person. Not meaning morally superior or that I believe it should make me a genius or give me magical powers. Not that any of that wouldn’t be dandy! But really.

Thing is, new knowledge or skills gained through practice are not in and of themselves transformative. I still have the same silly obsessions, ideas and ideals, and flaws and fears. I’m still attracted to the same colors, patterns, textures, and shapes, not to mention that I have recognizable signature styles of line work and abstraction and the like. So I learn how to use new tools and materials, like my little iPad and its friends the art apps. And I still kind of draw the same thing over and over. Variations on a theme. That sort of thing.

And strangely enough, I don’t mind. It remains true, along with all of my other perpetual characteristics, that the end product of my art work is less important than the process. That’s the essential part. Does it make me boring and predictable? Very possibly. Does it mean I’m unteachable and irredeemable? Hope not. Does it matter in the grand scheme of existence? Not likely. The universe has more important things to do.

I do not.