The freedom involved in artistic practice, however, is paralyzing, especially for those of us with radically unfree wills. An artist can make anything, work anywhere. Yet, the artist has an ethical responsibility to decide. And then to decide again, and again, every day. Having no prescribed career path, artists have to invent one…

The decision to be an artist is never made just once, but has to be made over and over, day after day. The next time you look at a painting in a museum or a gallery, think about those decisions that the artist had to make and the suffering it caused, in order to offer that particular painting for you. (Daniel A. Siedell)