Artists

It’s easy, as an artist, to turn relating to the world into an unhealthy obsession with being represented. It’s much easier now with the tool of the Internet. You can literally plaster yourself all over it, and it becomes addicting. Getting some symbol of acceptance such as a “like” on Facebook boosts your self-esteem, so why wouldn’t you want more? The problem with this is it becomes less about quality content, and more about pleasing a large number of people. Getting more and more acceptance and attention. It’s really hard not to become a part of it, especially when something you’ve poured your heart into gets little or no notice, and something you felt little connection to gets more. Many artists’ favorite pieces are far from their most popular. So what’s an artist to do? Especially if their income depends on it, can you blame someone for trying to earn a little more cash? Does it make it less artistic if the purpose is to make money?

If other artists are like me, anything other than art as a living feels soul crushing. But it’s far from practical or profitable in most cases, and most people will tell you that. So there must be something that drives people to live in poverty for the sake of art: what is it? What drives people to create? Recognition? Hope of change? Desire to start a revolution? Perhaps it’s a lot more complicated than that, but we hope to dissect it a little bit in this theme with interviews and discussion.

-Tess