A Young Woman's Awakening as an Artist. "Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy, only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is." Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark is a semi-autobiographical story of a girl from a rural town in eastern Colorado who attracts the attention of a series of mentors and sponsors for her musical talent.