Wise words from the sage San Francisco Bay Area based artist Jaime Cortez, via the Congratulations Pine Tree podcast:

“As you go through your artistic life, the basic questions are always the same. How are you feeling about your work? Do you feel like it’s getting recognized and supported? How is your financial picture? How is your courage? And it’s always those variables, but they’re in different measures. You keep coming to the crossroads and the crossroads is always the same one, but every time you come to it, you’re gonna formulate a slightly different answer. Sometimes your courage is very high, but your finances are crappy. Sometimes you’re actually doing OK financially, but other pieces of your creative life are not so great. I think to me being an artist is about re-negotiating the same variables again and again to deal with your changing life, and you have to keep adjusting and re-adjusting and re-calibrating your decisions.”

—Jaime Cortez, Congratulations Pine Tree podcast, Episode 19: “Naked Penises and Pine Cones (with Jaime Cortez,” December 28, 2014