It seems that more often than not, most genuine experiences are spent alone, or with very few, very trusted individuals. I'm sure that's not too difficult to relate to. But I know, that so many people desire to be around me, desire my company... I very rarely want to be around. It's not to say that I don't enjoy the visceral experience for what it is, but I feel as though often I'm just going through the motions to make everyone else happy or satisfied. Sometimes I begin to wonder how well I hide it anymore. It pays off, on rare occasion. Is that what makes it worth it to me? The fear of disappointing or hurting someone else, sadly, is one of my main motives. It makes me question my main motives for one of, what I consider to be, the most important languages of identification for myself, art.
It honestly feels like my most appreciated and remembered experiences do not revolve around me creating art. So why do I do it? What do I get out of it? I feel compulsed to create it, yet fear and anxiety hold me back from making it what I really want it to be. Fear of not enjoying myself mostly. But I won't allow myself to enjoy myself because I feel like I haven't earned it. So in the end, I'm never happy with it.
I feel like I can sit around and shoot the breeze all day about what makes someone an artist, yet I feel as though at most times, I don't really have the right to call myself one. Shouldn't my art make me happy? Shouldn't I want to do it more often than I do?
We can rationalize so many things. So I won't. I will leave these questions as questions.
I've been asked on numerous occasions, "What makes someone an artist."
People have a plethora of responses to that, reasonings. By societal standards, it's become an exclusive thing, a club if you will... there's certain hoops and passages we must go through, and quite frankly, sometimes I don't care. Sometimes I do. Why do I want to be considered an artist? By some measure, I suppose I perceive it to give me some sort of value, some sort of meaning, purpose.
In the end, the label means nothing. My actions, my creations, mean nothing. The loose standards that many people would hold for someone being considered an artist irritate me, yet I encourage creative exploration and initiative.
Why? Because that's mine and not yours? In a sense, I suppose. I do find that there's something fundamentally different about the way I think, feel, experience. Does that make me better? That's not for me to judge, and I don't really think about it. It does frustrate me, however.
I seem to place a much higher value on experiences... loves... interests... and I can't seem to get my head around most people's apparent negligence to the world around them, to themselves even. I try to communicate constantly what I feel, to share it with those who perhaps cannot... to inspire... to bring our minds closer together, to make sense of the world around me.
Sometimes, a bridge is created and other times the gap is widened. So I suppose I keep creating for the sake of those bridges and those gaps. It better defines for me, my place in my perceived world. Why is it necessary to know these things? I suppose we might as well question why anything is necessary.
So what makes someone an artist? Everything and nothing. There's is very little that can actually be solidly defined.
Am I an artist as far as in the idea that I create art (as defined by wikipedia) Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging symbolic elements in a way that influences and affects the senses, emotions, and/or intellect.
Yes.
But that does leave the opportunity open for most people to be considered artists. So why would the label be in existence? Is it someone who is particularly good at communicating these ideas? I guess. I guess that's what I would have to tear it down to.
I feel like I've expressed much and very little simultaneously. This whole thing feels like a big, pointless loop to me, and art feels that way to me sometimes too. I feel like I never know where I stand, and I feel like I constantly contradict myself.
Art should be considered a by-product of a disorder. I don't even remember where I was going with that and I only halfly mean it.
But in the end, what I really am left saying is I wish I could stay in one place longer, in one moment longer. I want time to think. I want time to write and explore. That's when I'm happy with what I create. My fear is I will never have that again. And I think that's why anxiety follows me. I'm never in one place long enough to get a good grasp of it and when I wake up the next morning, I can hardly associate a feeling with what I did the day before. I want my life to slow down, and sometimes, I really just want to be left alone.
I really enjoyed this blog, Christine- it states a fundamental difficulty in the artistic experience; one which I find myself asking myself a lot. There's a fantastic book (short one at that) named Art & Fear, written by David Bayles and Ted Orland; it discusses in great depth the needs, compulsions and obstacles we face with our work.
ReplyDeleteI think personally, though, that we are fundamentally different personalities as artists- our brains are wired differently, and even if we don't necessarily create things or objects of artistic value, the fact that we see the world at a slight tilt makes us artists. I'd argue for the idea of artistic minds vs. an artist- the technical ability or physical motivation/understanding of process being the main difference. The fact that you create art through your painting, costumes, photos or whatever means that you do fall into the latter category. Re-reading your post about the wiki-definition of art, yes, by those terms many/most people could be artists- but I believe the difference lies in the innate ability to communicate your reasons for expression... a person scribbling paint on a canvas isn't an artist until there becomes a reason to do so- and that reason CAN simply be to spread paint on a canvas; the real "trick" to being an artist is being able to answer that fundamental question: "Why?" Now, even if YOU personally can't quite figure out why you do your art, the fact remains that you still produce work- as a matter of fact you are one of the few artist students at BG I know who produces significant quantities of work outside of class... most students don't have that amount of artistic output under their own steam- you? Hell, you could hang a show with the amount of "outside" work you do.
Anxiety can breed good art- I've found that I do some of my best work when I do have some sort of deadline, be it self-imposed or forced by an outside influence; having that finite timeline helps me from overthinking and psyching myself out of producing work. Again, Art and Fear does a great job of addressing some of these factors- I'd be happy to loan you the 60 page handout Janet gave us to read (I'm still waiting on the backorder through Barnes and Noble for the full book).