A Word About Art-Making
One of the happy perils of posting your work online is the very real possibility of criticism. I suppose posting it anywhere exposes you, but the internet gives people both a microphone and anonymity. Things get said online that would never be said in person to another soul. The internet, especially social media, emboldens us.
But it’s not only the internet. Once a week, I hear from someone who attended a workshop or a camera club meeting, who got beaten down for daring to try something new, something more expressive than the technically proficient but often lifeless photographs that some people are more comfortable with. Such is the sad reality of being different in a world that rewards homogeny.
I recently posted to Instagram a photograph (above) that I developed a little differently than I once might have done—more playfully and less bound by realism. It got a lot of attention, so I posted a quick “here’s how I did it” video (which you can find on Instagram), and that also seemed well-received by almost everyone. But two comments stood out to me—not as mean-spirited, but as wrong-headed and far too typical.
One comment suggested that if we changed our photographs so dramatically (for the love of Ansel Adams, all I did was shift the green grasses to more of a burnt umber and the blue sky to more of a cyan to compliment the oranges; I didn’t add rhinos juggling kittens or anything), we might as well let A.I. take over, which makes less sense to me than the rhinos juggling kittens would have. If a piece of art (and photography is practiced as art by millions of people) comes from a human heart and imagination, I can’t for the life of me see why artificial intelligence is the next logical step.
But that’s not what really bothered me. It was this comment: “I’m not comfortable with this.” If I were still doing my Beautiful Anarchy podcast, the next words out of my mouth would be, “Let’s talk about it.”
In rendering orange grass and cyan skies, I had broken someone’s rules. I had crossed a line they had drawn in the sand, probably at one point for themselves but later extending it to others as well.
“I’m not comfortable with this.”
I do not make art for your comfort. I make it for mine. I don’t make art to abide by your rules but to challenge my own. If, by some happy miracle, that effort results in something that others resonate with in the same way that I look to the art of others to keep me awake and alive, then that’s a bonus. If, in the end, you find some comfort in what I make, I’m thrilled.
But how I make my art is my business alone. Sure, if I were a journalist or a documentarian, I would willingly work within certain parameters and expectations, but I’m not. And there’s a good chance you aren’t either. You make your art for reasons all your own, and the methods you use will be for the same personal reasons, not the least valid of which might be no more complicated than, “That’s what I like.”
Art-makers, listen up: You are obliged to no one to do things their way. You owe no debt of obedience to the judges, the mentors, or the pundits who try to mold you into their image. The best of whom, by the way, will zealously push you to make art that is entirely yours, and will be suspicious if it starts to look too much like theirs. What debt of obedience you owe is to your own curiosity and whatever spark that’s within you that’s trying to express itself in your work.
Your art, and the way you choose to make it, needs no more validation than that you had the courage to make it in the first place and to hold it up for others to experience despite the risk of being misunderstood, or worse, ignored.
“I’m not comfortable with this.”
Neither am I. I said I make my art for my comfort, not yours, but that’s not the whole truth. Art-making is often uncomfortable, and that discomfort probably isn’t a sign that you’re going the wrong way but in exactly the direction you need to explore. A direction that takes you beyond what you’ve done before. A direction that’s filled with both doubt and wonder. A direction that might not go where you expected or hoped but, when followed to the end, will make you a better artist with wider eyes and a bigger heart—a little bolder, a little more you.
It has never occurred to me to be uncomfortable with how you make your art. I don’t have the attention span or the emotional resources for that. I’m too busy being uncomfortable and challenged by my own work.
“I’m not comfortable with this.”
Excellent. I can’t think of a better place from which to learn and go beyond the limits you feel within yourself or the stifling rules imposed by others. Change is always preceded by discomfort. Your feelings of discomfort are not a reason to turn back, but to forge ahead.
The discomfort of others in reaction to your work is none of your concern. Not everyone will like what you make, and that’s not really your concern either. Your job is to make it. To be faithful to the voice inside your heart that insists you do it your way. That is often the point of art, not only that it be made, but that it be made the way you want to make it. The making is much of the reward.
Life is short, my friends. We make art to make that life more interesting and take it deeper—to explore questions, to discover what remains hidden in ourselves, to encounter and celebrate beauty. In this brief, short life, there are challenges enough to wilt the human spirit. Art has long been a welcome antidote for that, but to make art well, you must bare your soul and expose your heart. You need to risk it.
You will wrestle with your own discomfort daily. Don’t let the discomfort of others become your burden. And don’t allow their rules to become your chains.
For the Love of the Photograph,
David
PS – Thanks for all the comments below. There’s just no way I can acknowledge them all, but thank you for chiming in!
