The Dilemma of an Artist
artist
noun
/ˈɑr·t̬ɪst/
- a person who paints, draws, or makes sculptures
- An artist is also an actor, musician, dancer, or other performer.
Good artists are masters at their craft, the kind of craft which makes you wonder what humans are capable of, inspiring you and at times leaving you with questions about the human brain and its potential.
History shows us that art often precedes the artist. We encounter the creation before the creator, as I did with the Mona Lisa long before I learned of Da Vinci, saw David before Michelangelo and Starry Night before I knew how to pronounce Van Gogh’s name.
Amidst the chaos of the world we live in and the noise of discovery, there is the artist and his brainchild.
The Artist’s Divide
There is the artist, and then there is everyone else.
While others live on a timeline marked by weekends and paychecks, the artist bends to something far less stable, a compulsion. Not a job, not a task, but an ongoing negotiation with form and meaning. They do not choose to create, creation imposes itself.
This demand pulls the artist out of sync with the regular world. Time stretches or collapses, days pass in isolation, moments become raw material. Experiences aren’t just lived; they are observed, dissected, translated. The self is both the participant and the witness.
Over time the artist drifts, not above others, but besides them, on a different axis.
Obsession and the Fractured Self
To make art and to chase perfection in it is to give yourself over to something infinite, with finite tools. Language, paint, sound, movement nothing ever feels enough. So the artist refines, rewrites, repaints, restarts. Perfection is never reached, only approached, there is no arrival.
And yet, this search for precision in the work rarely translates into daily life. The artist may obsess over the spacing of two words in a line, but forgets to respond to a friend’s message. They may render emotion with unbearable clarity in their medium, yet remain elusive and rather hollow as a person.
This is the paradox: art becomes the most developed part of the self, while the rest remains fragmented. They are precise on the canvas, and clumsy in the kitchen. Wise in their writing, and careless in conversation. The art evolves. The human is left behind.
Collateral Damage
The people who love artists often love them at a distance. Not by choice, but by necessity. Art consumes space, it alters presence, it rewrites routine. For those up close, there is a quiet mourning of an intimacy that must often come second to the work. Relationships fracture not from lack of love, but from the gravity of the artist’s interior world.
The artist may be with you, but not fully, their mind elsewhere; editing, shaping, constructing. You speak, and they hear rhythm, not meaning. You cry, and the tears are on her canvas.
To be close to an artist is to live in acceptance of the fact that the relationship you share with the artist will often take a backseat, that the relationship they have with their art is much more intimate to them than the relationship can ever possibly be.
Art as Commodity
Capitalism values art only when it can sell it, and it sells best when it is easy to package, easy to replicate, easy to explain. But real art is rarely any of those things.
The artist, who labors alone in ambiguity, must then present the work for public consumption. Platforms, galleries, grants, social media, networking, the work becomes product. The artist a brand.
Value is now measured in metrics, visibility, relevance.
And the cruelest part: recognition, if it comes at all, is often delayed, sometimes by decades, sometimes posthumously. The artist is forgotten until the work can be commodified, only then is meaning retroactively applied.
Van Gogh died unknown, Kafka died unpublished.
Their names now fill museums and syllabi, but the praise came too late to be useful. The artist creates in the present, the world responds in the future.
The Split
To make art is to split the self.
The artist must live in the world, but not fully belong to it. Must engage with others, but always retain something untouched. Must create with urgency, while knowing that recognition if it comes is arbitrary and uneven.
They are driven by a standard that ruins them for ordinary life. Obsessed with perfection in one realm, disordered in others. Deeply expressed in their art often emotionally unavailable in relationships, misunderstood by those who stayed and celebrated by strangers.
Art changes the artist, not always for the better, but always permanently.
- Posthumously
- (adverb) after the death of the originator.
- Retroactively
- (adverb) with effect from a date in the past.
- Elusive
- (adjective) difficult to find, catch, or achieve.
- Capitalism
- (noun) an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.