“Some lose all mind and become soul, insane.
Some lose all soul and become mind, intellectual.
Some lose both and become accepted”
~ Charles Bukowski
This quote by Bukowski always throws me into a whirlpool of thoughts. The idea of how honest one is to one’s chosen artform is debatable, there might not actually be a true measure for that. But what one does to their art to make it acceptable to the audience is…
We are in an age of connectivity and social media and that makes it incredibly easy to assume that you read your audience’s reaction. Did you know that there are services now that enable you to buy insta likes? That denotes the importance of a social media presence, and not just instagram, now more than ever. I have seen far too many artists making important choices based on what they believed ‘worked’ with the audience. Giving up on genuinely different thoughts and approaches to the art because the audience didn’t get it the first few times. If that luxury of feedback wasn’t there I am certain their approach to their art would be drastically different.
This quote always reminds me of artists like Vincent Van Gogh. One of history’s greatest painters, who sold one painting while he was alive. He was famously quoted saying that nobody might buy his paintings now but they will be worth more than the cost of painting materials they came from some day.
In the search of getting likes and applauses have we somewhere along they way sold off the connect we had to art. It is this thought that keeps me vary of praise and applause. I guess, in the end all that truly matters to me is to look back and know that I did justice to the idea/inspiration behind what I create.