There are thousands of kinds of marks: smooth, rough, hard, sharp, clean, dirty, tight, loose . . . What you hold in your hand — a pen, a brush, a stick of charcoal, a tube of paint, the end of a stick, a sponge, a palette knife, a butcher’s knife, a hammer, a chisel — determines the kind of mark, the foundation for your art-making.

But what you hold in your heart is your most important tool: the spirit, or quality, of the mark-making.

Materials matter, but not that much.

You can master the control of a simple, inexpensive pencil, or spend thousands of dollars on “professional oils,” or produce your art with a camera, a blow-torch, or discarded car parts. Whatever your tools, your mediums, a certain control and understanding of how to work with them — what to do, precisely — must be achieved.

Mastery is essential for only the very best work.

The heretical truth is: a thoughtful confidence and sufficient control can do just fine for most art-making.