fisk

When I look at artists there are always two qualities that I look at: first personality and second quality. With quality I mean that technique and skill and craftmanship, the professional look. The difference between experience and inexperience. With personality I mean something that the person does that shows in their work, their feelings, their own style - their expression. And I've always put that part in front of everything else when I critique someone. If you don't have personality, you don't have anything.

In my years as an artist I have come to understand that my artistry is, at best, personal. Most of it has an affectionate value that I can keep to myself. And, while there's always the vain notion and... desire to be approved of (as I believe is genuinely human) there is also, now, the acceptance that what I produce aesthetically isn't really as good as I desire. I believe that once you've done enough art, as I have done. And most of it, judging it through the eyes of a critic; being quite average - you come to realize that average seldom is looked upon and viewed with reaction. It is at best, to use a media-communications vocabulary; redunda

RONNIE JAMES DIO passes away at age 67, still rocking. I'm without words... :/