Many of us would love our art to be influential, or to reach a wide audience. In some words, we want our art to become famous. Rather than simply condemning this desire as greed, it is worth recognizing this dream often comes out of the fact that it was someone else’s far-reaching art that inspired us to start making art it the first place. It makes sense.
The problem is that not all “great” art becomes famous, and not all famous art is “great.” The next reaction is often to condemn popular culture for not recognizing “true art”. This is even less helpful for both our audience, and for our own practice. This line of thinking can lead to not caring about how our art affects others. This not caring can be helpful for experimenting with new forms that are not yet “publicly accessible”, but then the artmaking starts stemming from a place of alienation, and not of connection.
There is a pain that comes with releasing art that you genuinely believe in, and it not being validated by a large public response. The lack of response can often feel worse than a negative response. “If people hate my work, at least they are engaging with my work”. But no one can be to blame for this. The truth is that there is already so much good art out in the world, and so much more being created each day (this was the case even before GenAI came along). This, objectively, is a fantastic thing – an abundance of good art being created all the time. But this can also make the individual artist feel that their contribution is unneeded. This, too, is an unhelpful place to stop.
There is something to be said for accepting that pain as simply part of the process. Acknowledge it. Feel it. Use it as creative fermentation. Whatever work for your practice. Definitely don’t let it stop or misguide future creative work. Our work needs to continue coming from a genuine place of creativity.
One approach, that I suspect is helpful, is to focus on our own relationship with the piece we are creating. Make this relationship our primary measure of quality. If you cultivate your art to a point where you feel a genuinely fruitful relationship with it – use that as the measure.
It is true that when we end up releasing the work, there is no guarantee that others will feel the same way about the piece as us. This might bring some pain. But if others do connect with our work, they are connecting to the same work that we are.
Now that connection – that is why we create art in the first place.