No two artists I’ve ever met are artists for the same reason. The connection between an artist’s soul and work is one of a kind. It starts with an invisible spark, then branches in a thousand potential ways before it blossoms as the final piece. It’s the artist’s heart.
The artistic process varies also, but what artists create for is just as important as the work itself. Some of the artists I know paint for relaxation. Some take photographs to capture moments. Some pour out their emotions in pen and then destroy the pieces afterward. Most of the ones I know, regardless of personal reasons, share their art online for all the world to see.
I joined DeviantART.com in 2010, and I didn’t really know why. It was a place to show people what I had done. Cool. I wasn’t selling my art. It wasn’t a graphic novel or a comic strip series people could follow. Just doodles about my stories which I tossed up on the site every so often—and still do. I’ve been a fairly active member ever since. But it wasn’t meant to go beyond the occasional upload and wistful browsing. I have some followers and a few profile views, but the excitement ends there.
Not long after I joined the only budding artistic community I ever found, I began to wonder if I was putting my heart into my work only to pitch it toward a vast expanse of silence. A void. This started when I first understood how much art means to me. In the same way writing is my natural way of communicating, art has become an extension of my voice. When writing becomes too tiresome, I turn to art. Always create, always produce something—the same as breathing. Bits of my heart found life in pencil, ink and marker.
Sharing it with an audience of seven billion drops it into a new context.
Art’s context is its paradox. An original Monet can earn millions for an art collector but mean absolutely nothing to a survivor stranded on a desert island. The only way art can have worth is if someone believes it has worth. Posting my artwork on the web sometimes feels like I’m presenting it to the survivor on the desert island. In a world with a failing economy, political upheaval, sickness, death and ten thousand better artists, my art’s worth fades. I’m speaking to a void.
Yet, I keep drawing. I buy new sketchbooks and I get excited about pencil sharpeners, and I bookmark tutorials on how to draw clothing folds. I continue to upload art to the internet. It’s because I learned something important as a writer and I’m grateful I learned it in my natural medium first. There is only one reason why an artist, writer, musician or any creative person will share something with an audience, because there is the possibility someone will find its worth. That’s all. There’s a one in seven billion chance that someone on the planet will find stirring connection to what I have created. It happens to me all the time; I fall in love with art like soul mates fall for each other. Anyone could fall in love with mine.
So I keep throwing my heart into the void with the hope someone will catch it.
