The Artist’s Paradox

As an artist, do you ever get overwhelmed by everything you want to create? Do you ever think about why you create art? Do you wonder if anyone else will like what you do?

I create obsessively. I paint in watercolor and acrylic. I am new and excited about surface pattern design. And I recently uploaded every Phish setlist painting that I have done so far… and two of them have sold!

Hallelujah! Nothing makes me happier than knowing another human enjoyed my art enough to put down their hard-earned money for it. If I ever become a wildly famous artist, I cannot imagine ever taking that for granted.

I often wonder… as artists, WHO do we do our work FOR? Of course, an artist must make art to please themselves if it is to be honest and authentic. It seems to me that if one makes art just to please others, then is it really art? Or is it decor? Or marketing? I don’t have an answer to that… let’s just say, it’s not how I want to approach making my art. It’s natural to sometimes NOT like the art one makes, but if you never love what you make, why would you do it at all?

And then there is the issue of style and technique. I’m not a successful enough artist to have faced the issue of whether to continue making the same KIND of art because that is what my audience buys. That dilemma is a velvet trap… and artists DO have to deal with that. Especially if they rely on income from their art.

Maybe an artist like Damien Hirst (arguably the highest paid painter in the world today) can continue to change up his style and still sell millions of dollars of art… but maybe now he can do that because he has all that fame and fortune? As an example, he became famous for a shark floating in formaldehyde in a glass tank. Later on, he sold spot paintings, a diamond-encrusted skull and medicine cabinets filled with pill bottles. His latest collection is a bunch of floral paintings like this one:

These latest offerings were painted for his mother, according to the gallery owner in Aspen where I took this photo. Apparently, his mom wanted to put something other than sharks and pills up on her living room wall. And I imagine a lot of other people feel the same way. This painting was already sold when we snapped that photo. For multiple millions. Hirst obviously has skills, though I’m not sure those were so obvious with the shark and the pill bottles. These are the things I think about… does skill matter? are ideas more important than skill? are connections more important than skill or ideas?

Then of course, as an artist, if your style is so wide and deep that you can continue exploration AND please your audience, that is the sweet spot! For me, making art IS exploration or it is nothing. (Probably true for life as well.) Check out this amazing artist, Benjamin Sack… talk about exploration!

I find there is something deep inside me that cares very much if people see something they resonate with in my art. There is nothing to compare with the feeling when someone tells me they love my work… it’s not the same as loving or liking me as a person. It’s not the same, and yet it hits just as deeply.

And while as an artist, I will continue to make art whether you like it or not, it adds another layer of satisfaction or reward when you do.

So I make my art for me and don’t care if you like it. And, thank you for liking it, because I care very much.