Creators become frozen with indecision about their work. Some may think it’s due to fat egos. Sometimes it is. Others may think it’s due to an insufficient ego. Sometimes it is.
Enjoying the work, or perceiving value in your own work does not mean anyone else will enjoy it as you do.
The professional creator who expects to make a living on their work must always be aware of its value to others. Otherwise, they will need to get a day job.
Assuming that what is of value in you will be of value to others – and finding out it is not – is a source of great pain for many artists. Much of the time, the world does not place a value on what the artist produces.
Everyone wants to believe they make a contribution. Only artists are told that they should expect to be grateful merely for the right to make marks on paper. Anything beyond that is just feed for the ego!
Making art does not make pain go away. Sometimes art expresses pain.
Sometimes art is a shout. Sometimes art is a scream.
Art is like marriage: the lie is in the happy wedding. There will be tempests after. You must be prepared for sorrow as well as joy, to experience the times when art is hard, and unhappy. Difficulties will imprint themselves on your art, and those real world difficulties aren’t something one can dismiss as the fripperies of ego.
Art is about communication and it doesn’t always communicate what you want, it doesn’t always communicate what other people want.
Sometimes the world does not want to listen to you.
There is a great deal of pain, for many artists, in putting everything they have into the work, putting it out for all to see, and having the world give a collective, “No thanks.”
Why should we pay attention to any of this anyway?
What joy? What value?
You have to find your own joy. You have to believe in your own value.
That is why you make art.
Don’t let the rest of the world make your art about them. You need them to buy your art so you can make a living at art. But you don’t need to make a living at art to make art your life.
Your art is about you.
