Putting yourself out there
" Art is coming face to face with yourself. " - Jackson Pollock Many artists - whether they paint, photograph, compose, sculpt, carve, work in CGI, crochet, knit, weld, make collages, create art in mixed media, or write* - get asked a particular question. Sometimes it's couched as 'What are you trying to say?' or 'What influenced you to produce that piece of art?' or something similar, but you can often reduce the question to a single word: 'Why?' Why do artists feel the need to create? Wolf and I have talked about this over the years and my list comes down to: - Self-expression (a feeling or a story or a concept we want to share, sometimes just to get it out of our system) - A way of making sense of what's inside us (this can include depicting or even rearranging our experiences) - A means of exploration (seeing where following certain themes lead us) - Being inspired by an experience, a person, a place or even a moment Whatever prompts us t
