Art for the sake of sharing?

Walking around the edges, crunching the pieces that fall off along with my steps, I tread a fine line between the periphery and the interior. Most people don't notice me sauntering around the hem of their skinny jeans and vintage dresses or their guitar strings and cigarettes. I watch, observe, listen, and fantasize about this or that, often forgetting that I am not in the solitude of my own home. Things are more clear standing on the edge, a broader view of reality or at least my own sense of it.

Today calls for a full retreat. I have been more social in the past month than I've been in years (perhaps a slight exaggeration) and my body is reacting. Solitude is calling out to me. This is the part of myself that I tend to nurture more than anything, the part that I love the most and can connect with on a whole other level. I am happy to be back here. A social cleanse, if you will. I long for the stillness of my days alone, the strength I find from reflection and silence and the choice to move as slowly as I please.

Art for the sake of sharing?

Somebody recently asked me if I write because I'm a 'sharer' or if I simply do it for the sake of writing. At the time, I said I did it more for the practice of it than the reaction I receive, good or bad. And really, I do only write for my own personal pleasure, as a way of extending my humanity to the world.

Writing is certainly not my art, but serves as the starting point for this thought process. My creativity only feels the most honest when my hands are completely active in the process (not just typing), when they can feel the movement, the texture, the pain of working for too long. When they are stained black, blue, red or yellow or bruised and blistered. My hands are an extension my my heart and mind.

And so, yesterday, as I sauntered the puddled sidewalks, good music acting as the soundtrack to my day, I thought a lot about the notion of creating and why we do it all. I recognize that art comes from a very personal place and that in the end, we do it as a way to share pieces of ourselves with the world. That for most creative people the need to dilute the contents of our hearts and minds comes with a sense of urgency, a need to just get it out of our own physical space and quite literally into the world. That in the act of creating we are sharing our own perceptions, thoughts, feelings, ideas, fantasies, heartaches, and all the things in between as a way to provoke the onlooker, the listener, the reader. We, as artists, offer ourselves up, in all our glory and pain, as a way to unite people in our commonality -- our struggles and questions, our dreams and wishes, our opinions and ideologies but mostly because that is the clearest way we can convey our observations in our typically dark minds.

"Art is only and merely wonderful, sublime, terrific, joyous. Useless."

I read this yesterday and thought that yes, perhaps when considering its functionality, it does not have a lot of practical use but that's the point. This is what makes art so important and what makes sharing it even more so. It's a way for people to connect on the most human level. It provides a platform of understanding and honesty and, hopefully, dialogue.

Making art makes me a more honest person. When I share parts of myself, I am extending an open invitation for criticism, in any form, but also provide an opportunity for connection.


As I sat by the window of the bookstore, flipping through a magazine and sipping on yet another coffee, I came across an article that demanded my attention. It offered up ideas or opinions about the art critique being an extension of art itself. Could one exist without the other? Do we create for the simple act of creating or do we, as artists, create with the critique in mind? This got me thinking, all day and all night and now, it seems, into the next day. Who are we creating for? Are we honest when we say we are doing for ourselves because it's the only thing that makes us feel truly whole?

This got me going....

I certainly create because it's the only thing I've found that can truly pull me out of this world and into the space of deep concentration, almost elation. I find true peace and stillness when I am making something out of nothing. I don't share most of what I do. Often when I am done with one thing, I simply toss it into a shoebox and move on to the next idea. But there are times when I feel that by sharing something I have created, I am giving it life. That it will not be done without the act of sharing.

Art is deeply personal, yes but is it so because when you get to the heart of it, this is where people can more readily connect? That at the end of the day, if you are one way and I the other, and if we are totally honest with each other, we will become mirrors displaying the same image? Perhaps we are not creating so much for the critique as we are for the connection. I am certain that most creative people that choose this life over another would never stop making art due to negative feedback, in fact, it would likely push them to delve a little deeper, be a little more honest. We create because this is how we know how to relate to others.

And then there is the notion of a solitary life in relation to a creative life. That choosing to be an artist means choosing a life of solitude. This makes sense to me and really, is probably why I find it so appealing. So if this is the case, then by at least sharing our art we are making attempts at reaching out to others. We are stepping out of our minds and into the hearts of others.