“The saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices that you make will shape your life forever.”
– Chazz Palminteri, A Bronx Tale
The Struggle
I had been struggling to produce works of art that had any merit for over 10 years. This is after I took “my world by storm” when I was a teenager through to my early 20’s.
I had travelled to Italy and had my most prolific period, producing so many works that I lost count.
All of them sold to collectors.
Some had even been ‘stolen’ by Italian port authority officials during a custom’s check during my move back to Australia.
I had shown great promise but failed to eventually live up to my own hype.
Wasted Years
I wasted too many good years churning out some good works but mostly mediocre garbage that was aimed at the popular market or trying to appeal for social ‘Likes’.
I loved the portrait commissions that I painted and drew as well as the custom car drawings for collectors.
My other attempts at original artworks did not come close to the dali-esque works of earlier times.
I struggled to find my ‘voice’ and spent too much time trying to be someone else.
I started a few websites to promote my work but I had no idea what I was doing.
It was simply an act in self indulgence (aren’t most artist websites?)
Work and site traffic trickled in but not enough to make anything of it.
I felt I was wasting my time and perhaps I should just give up.
Frustrated
In an act of frustration I closed down my original websites, my blogs and social media pages.
All I had left was an Instagram and Tumblr page and I was so ashamed of myself I removed my own name and called the pages Wasted Talent Inc, because I had truly believed I had become a wasted talent, a never was has-been.
Defeated
I had almost given up on my dream of doing ‘something’ with my artistic abilities as I had spent the previous year trying to recapture something that would make me, make great art again #MMMGAA!!!!
Each attempt resulted in only rubbish works, art that I would never show in public.
I destroyed every piece that was a work in progress and came to the realisation I was living in the past.
I had always wanted to be a famous artist but as I got older I just wanted to ‘make good art’ (to borrow from Neil Gaiman).
Having met with Wendy Hope, a fellow Australian artist, I had regained much hope and took on her advice but still nothing came to fruition. I was stuck.
Maybe I was never as good as I had believed.
I just sat there and I looked at all my art supplies collected over the years, a beautiful easel plus all the new stuff I had purchased in the last few years.
Some still in their original packaging and I resigned myself to not producing any more new works as Joseph Colella and to just become a brand.. Wasted Talent Inc
Wasted Talent Inc was born
Wasted Talent Inc was born as an idea to just produce some t-shirts and sell those while appealing to other artists who felt the same way.
I then found some great artists on Instagram who had dealt with similar issues and discovered how they worked around it.
I decided to give it another try.
Mixing my love of art, my love of teaching and my experience in blogging, marketing, agile delivery (im a software/website guy by day), social media and growth hacking skills (from when I ran a few businesses and startups) i’m hoping that this time, with a planned effort and ability to grind things out I should be back! Fingers crossed
