a 'successful' artist

[mickstafa]

I subscribe to what Robert Fripp told me a few years ago relating to the seven regions of influence, if we are talking about success measured from an external perspective. I found a transcript from him speaking about this at a different time:

"There are seven geographical regions of influence, depending upon your quality as a musician, artist or performer that you can move into. The first is domestic, will your aunt sit and listen to you playing? If your aunt, mother and siblings won’t come home to listen to you play, probably get off at this point. But if your aunt likes it, you can probably get the gig in the village hall. So you go from domestic to local, to regional, to national, to international, to global to interplanetary. Now, if we think that interplanetary is a real dumb thing to say, we find this in current record contracts, you don’t sign for the world now, you sign for space."
http://percy3.wordpress.com/2010/02/...-robert-fripp/

From an internal perspective, I also agree with Fripp's point of view (it isn't in the link I just posted) where there are four levels of mastery: Novice, Skilled, Master, and Genius. The latter can only be given whereas the first three can be acquired, through practice. The more important question is, if being a genius is a gift, who is the giver? My answer: God and Love.