Each man has his own way of being himself and of saying it so ultimately that he can’t be denied.
—Henry Miller
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I ran the entry below back in 2009 and again back in 2013. It is a favorite of mine and one of my more popular posts, regularly drawing a number of readers who find it via web searches. I like it because it describes the internal transition that took place over the years on my path to becoming and accepting my place as an artist. I say path because it took a long time before I found the confidence to call myself an artist. For many years, even as I was working full time as a painter, I was hesitant to say those words, to say that I was an artist.
I periodically pull this entry up and read it just to remind myself to trust my inner voice and the work that comes from it. I think it is worth running yet again. Oh, and excuse Henry Miller for the sexist sounding nature of his words above– it would read better if it went Each person has their own way...
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When I used to enter a gallery or museum, even up until several years ago, I would be filled with a severe sense of dread and anxiety. Angst. The knot in the stomach. The racing pulse. The whole thing.
I would go from painting to painting and would feel lessened in some way because in each piece I would see something that I could not do, some technique that was not in my toolbag. There were colors and forms that I could not replicate and all I could think was that I was somehow inferior.
I didn’t belong.
The resulting feelings would leave me reeling and sometimes angry, making me even more determined to create something that would validate my work.
While this was a motivating force for many years, helping me actually find my voice, it gradually subsided over the years as I became more and more aware that I had been focusing on things I could not control and on being something I was not.
I began to see what I was. My perceptions and feelings were only mine. To express these, I had an individual voice and vocabulary that was mine and no one else’s. I began to see that other artists felt about my work as I had felt about their work. I saw that while they were doing things that I could not, the reverse was true as well. I recognized that my voice, my technique and style, was finally mine and mine alone. I saw that my form of expression was every bit as valid as any other artist hanging in any gallery or museum.
This was a liberating feeling. It allowed me to go into galleries and museums and , instead of seeing what I was not, recognize the beauty of expression that was there and be excited and inspired by things other artists were doing.
Instead of coming out saying ” I’ll show them ” I was saying “I can use that”.
Instead of asking “Why am I not good enough?” I was asking “Why not me?”
It was merely a matter of trusting that what I saw in my own work was a true and real expression and would be visible to others. I think this a lesson from which any viewer of art can benefit. They must learn to trust their own instincts and reactions when looking at art. Like my self-expression, their reaction to a work is theirs and theirs alone. Their reaction is as valid as anyone else and no critic or gallery-owner can make a person like a piece that doesn’t move them. When the viewer realizes that there is no right or wrong, that their own opinion is truly valid, their viewing pleasure will increase dramatically.
By the way, the piece at the top is an old experiment from around 1994. I always enjoy pulling it out even though it doesn’t fit neatly into my normal body of work. No more angst.
Well, a different kind of angst…
Redtree Times 