The Truth About Being #1

It's fleeting, I know. Amazon updates hourly, but for my one brief, shining moment, I am #1 on Amazon. Sure it's in a small category, Textile Arts, but really, how often can one say they are #1. So I'm saying it. YAY. I am #13 in Crafts – and that's a much larger category.

Wait. I am not #1, my book is #1. Can't make that mistake again. An artist (or author) should never identifiy their self with their work. If you equate your self-worth to how your artwork is received by the masses, then you will never, ever feel good about yourself. It's fleeting, it's delusional, it's self-defeating. Your job, talented as you may be, it to produce the work. It is not your job to look for admiration, approval, acceptance.  You do that and right there you are running into a brick wall. It stops you, freezes you, takes the soul out of your art.

So why do we do it? I went almost a month without checking my Amazon stats. It really wasn't important. I didn't need to know. I was busy making art. But every so often when I log onto Amazon my book pops up as one I might be interested in (computers aren't all that smart). So I checked today. And of course it made me feel good. I'm not saying it isn't a great feeling, but it's not all that and whatnot, as my kids say.

As artists, we need to know that what we do is being noticed. We work in a vacuum, alone for the most part. We have no annual review, no teacher to let us know we are on the right path, no praising parent to post our artwork on the refrigerator. If we are doing it right, we pour ourselves into our work. We truly put ourselves OUT there and we want someone to notice.  Art, after all, is a form of communication. Do you ever say something to someone who is not listening to you? It's quite  frustrating when our communication goes unacknowledged.

But in order for people to pay attention our communication must be true, be honest, be real, from the soul. If you have nothing unique to say, or are afraid to really say/show what is in your heart, then people will probably not want to listen to you.  You must be real. You must make art for yourself and only yourself. Never for your desired audience. 

Quilter David Walker sums it up nicely ~  "I believe that the making of art is primarily for the benefit of the artist. If what the artist has created communicates messages and feelings to others, then it is because of the universality of the human experience that is speaking through the work of art. "

And here are wise words from other artists & writers ~

We create because we want to communicate something, because we want someone to hear what we've said and think "yes!" (Fiona Robyn)

Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. (Leo Rosten)

Art is a language, an instrument of knowledge, an instrument of communication. (Jean Dubuffet)

Art is a means of communication by which mind reaches out to mind across great gaps of space and time. (Francis Hoyland)

What could be more interesting, or in the end, more ecstatic, than in those rare moments when you see another person look at something you've made, and realize that they got it exactly, that your heart jumped to their heart with nothing in between. (Robert Motherwell)

Amen.