The Thin Gray Line

During conversations among many artists, questions that frequently come up are: with whom do you want to communicate with your art? Do you only want to make art for those who are educated in fine art or would you like a broader audience for your work? If the latter is your preference, then how far are you willing to go to convey an idea with your art?  How far should an artist be willing to bend for the sake of communication?

As with most human endeavors, the metaphoric line to cross is a thin gray one; if a fine artist crosses it in one direction, that same artist risks producing trite fluff. If an artist makes art that travels far on the opposite side of the line, he or she will be making art that mostly the intelligentsia of the art world will appreciate, where 'art for art's sake' becomes a common mantra. As trained artists who spend much of their lives among art educators, scholars, & other artists, it's easy to fall into this particular train of thought.

As an artist I find myself thinking about how each object, color, technique, & medium connects to my overall goal to communicate to my audience. For my own art, communication is essential. Sometimes I am successful, and sometimes I am not so successful, but my ultimate goal is to jar something in the viewer, to shake loose some memory or association in them so that when they walk away from the art they still think about it, they continue to remember it and think about why it spoke to them in some way.  In other words, I prefer to walk the gray line.

973DDF2C-A92E-28ED-6C35-156FCE44DD89

1.02.28