The life of an artist

I've always wondered about how and why people create art.  On Wednesday night we went out to dinner with friends who are visiting (one is an artist) from Sacramento and with the couple we met on our first night here (ditto).

We had a good discussion in the SMdA artist's studio about how he works through images and also about how things eventually come back in many iterations.  He showed us a collection of images, drawings, paintings from many years that are works in progress.   The best description I heard from both artists was how their activity evolves - it does not simply go from idea to completion.