Audience Considerations

Closed in verses relatively open...
Feeling like your on the tail of the curve.

I worked on mutable forms again today (when not doodling as above), playing with varied arrangement, me in the studio, without an audience. I like what I see. That doesn't mean every or any audience will.

There can be a disconnect ... because the work does not quite come together (like at ArtPrize, though I think I disliked my piece more than did viewers), or it does work yet is perceived differently by viewers. Without connecting, the artwork's validity rests with the artist as creator. I think that's one of the reasons making art can feel lonely. When the work does connect and communicate, even if the communication differs from the artist's intention -- one can see connection in people's faces when they look at the work -- the work extends past its creation and the artist.

Art sometimes gets appreciated and hawked merely for the apparent time its creation took, or the many multiples of materials that comprise the work. It's ironic to hear some criticize this appreciation as mass audience appeal -- a la some of the work that was in ArtPrize -- when time and accumulation find appreciation and approval in the higher art world, too. Time and accumulation are valid strategies, as are most strategies, if they result in work that connects aesthetically and conceptually and lasts beyond the initial novelty of the time expended or the pieces accumulated. If viewers keep thinking about the work, something got through.