Whether you see art as a product of our lives or an expression of it – art is meant to be tested. I guess the question is, can it really be art, if it just sits in your mind and never makes it on to the canvas? Maybe it makes it to the canvas, but you never show it to anyone. Is it still art? Maybe.
Do you know an artist that never shows their art? It really doesn’t exist.
Art is meant to be tested. No matter what your medium and no matter what your instrument – when you create art, it needs to be tested. It needs to be critiqued. You need people to look at it and respond to it. Art is meant to be oooh’d and awwww’d over. It might just make you go ewwww, but that’s okay. If someone makes a remark about it, it is remarkable.
Don’t hide your art. Let us see it. Don’t be afraid. Even if someone hates it, you would’ve gotten a response or remark from it. If it just stays hidden, it’s just a good idea that you will never share and no one will ever see.
Art by my friend Sam. I’ve got a few of his pieces. Let me know if you want to commission anything by my friend Sam.
identitySPECIALIST 
To get a remark, makes it remarkable. 🙂
Thanks.
You know, I used to be one of those people who never ever showed their art. Though I still understand the validity of that rationale, I am really finding that I like to share it too. Art is definitely meant to be shared. I believe (no matter what type) it brings people together.
Great post!
Currie – you got any work that I can show off? Let me know. You got anything that you’re sharing/selling?
It’s a wonderful thing when someone sees/feels exactly what you see/feel in your “art”. It’s also enlightening when someone sees differently. But that’s okay. At least you shared and they responded. That brings fulfillment as well. =)
The response is the key. It almost doesn’t matter what they say.
Totally agree Lem – it is all about the response.
It is hard sometimes to ship, as Steve Jobs put it, but it has to be done. On my blog I usually write about non-fiction, but I love fiction writing. I have been taken alot recently by Joe Bunting’s blog http://www.thewritepractice.com he put a prompt up that I knew I had to respond to, so I did, you can read my first fiction story, that I posted on my blog here. It’s short, but oh the feeling of posting it, I was nervous in a way that was very different from putting my other work out there, but I knew from the deepest parts of my heart that I had to do it!
http://www.saltandsparkle.com/home/2012/4/26/a-story-for-the-write-practice.html