To Thine Own Audience Be True

It could take a lifetime to find one's audience, so the answer would be to express yourself to your own standards, without concern for pleasing the masses.

Where does authenticity lie! I'd say, with the artist, not the fickle audience.

Honesty and Validation can co-exist.

Express what means something to you. Unless you live in a vacuum there will be an audience out there somewhere.

Lucky is the artist who does what he/she wants and has an audience willing to pay him/her for whatever. It does happen.

Your audience is whoever happens to be looking.

It is a fool's errand to try to please the masses. There are no masses to please. Each person in a crowd sees only through his own eyes, and thinks only his own thoughts.

Sometimes my audience is my cat. She is mainly interested in string-game.

I spent so much time in my 20's trying to please everyone.....always the people pleaser ...failing to get recognition for any of it nor did anyone truly care about what I was creating because deep down I didn't know what the heck I was doing.....it didn't come off as authentic....it wasn't at all ME

The moment I stopped trying to create what I thought people wanted me to create and said screw it! I'm doing what I want...that's when people started responding to me and my work. Some negative but mostly positive the point is they were noticing...they were intrigued.....I was no longer a poser and a person trying way too hard to get approval I was just me. I had to learn that you can't please everyone......and that's ok.

I think my 30's are gonna rock and be beneficial to my art.....I'm finally growing up.

My audience found me while I was discovering myself.....and they continue to inspire me to grow

I've always been one to stand on principle.
Doing so can often be an isolating experience.

There are many around here who would suggest finding what people like, and then doing that over and over again.
Such an approach seems contradictory to self-expression and artistic exploration.

"I've always been one to stand on principal.
Doing so can often be an isolating experience."

Then again, sometimes it's not. Standing on your principles is an excellent way to find other people who share your principles.

Are playing to an audience and expressing yourself contradictory approaches?

Not at all. ... I have known symphony conductors who love being on stage, even with their backs turned to the audience. ... Their expression is their performance to please an audience - they derive satisfying personal expression by knowing that they can be on stage for somebody else all the time.

Can an artist be authentic while simultaneously trying to please the crowd?

If the artist authentically WANTS to please a crowd, then yes. ... Again, if the expression is based on pleasing someone else from the start, then there are no contradictions, just adaptations to what EXPRESSION can mean.

Do the masses celebrate honesty or validation?

"The masses" is just a phrase that has no real meaning to me, as it tries to create an agglomeration with personality that does NOT and canNOT exist. ... In other words, I do not believe that there is any mass practice of any one definition of "honesty" or "validation".

To me, "the masses" represents the bulk of a bell curve; the average person.

Is it safe to say that the average person appreciates average art?

There are no statistical beings. (^_^)

It's like trying to take a "global average temperature" seriously or an "average telephone number". ... Math, in all its glory, can trick our minds into some pretty nifty absurdities.

I have never known an "average person". ... I have never seen any average art - how do you do the math on that one? - add up all the brush strokes and divide by the number of people painting them?

Big Data would disagree with you on that one.
In their eyes, we are nothing but bell curves, which they have utilized to great effect.

I have to agree with Joe, we are all human and have the same brain functions and react to stimulus in more or less the same way, (unless we are mentally ill, psychotic people are the true outliers.) we are all being manipulated much more than we realize, even those that believe they are on the fringe, in fact the current generation is probably the most manipulated ever thanks to the constant bombardment of "information" through all our electronic devises.

As for audience, I have no idea who mine is so I can only be true to myself which is hard enough, how can I please some anonymous group of people when I can't even please myself?

I admit that I do create art on occasion to please an audience... I sell my art at comic conventions and the ones that do best are recognizable characters from comic books, TV, games, etc... I prefer to do my own characters but fans are constantly asking "Oh, can you do a Catwoman? Can you do a Harley Quinn?" So I do, and those end up being my best sellers. I do it to attract them to my art in general. I sold my art last weekend at a pop up gallery at an LA club event and the art that sold the best, was my original characters and quirky stuff that usually never sells, so go figure! I continue to do pop culture art just for hashtag recognition and for fans who like that but I'm focusing more on what I personally want to create too and expanding in different areas including children's art and photography. FAA has influenced my art a bit. Sometimes I get inspired for an idea from an upcoming contest, sometimes I'm more conscious of doing more "family friendly" art so I can post it more places, but then I get an inspiration to do a nude... I think, for me, it's half and half. Some art I create with an audience in mind, other times, I just do whatever inspires me at the moment. I think it's a good balance. I also do commissions and book covers, movie posters, so of course then, I lose a lot of creative control and have to do what the client wants, which is often not my personal taste...

A man who wants to lead the orchestra should ask how to get to Carnegie Hall. Be sure you are in the right place.

What would Rembrandt say?

wwrs?

Dave

Is it safe to say that the average person appreciates average art?

The average person loves van Gogh. So no it is not safe to say that.

What is safe to say is that most artists do not find the truths of the language.
Art is a language. It has some truths that are spoken by a few rare artists in every generation.

Using music Beethoven's Fifth Symphony has that dum dum dum....dummmmm.....it is one of the greatest truths of music.
The call in the field to hunt. It is a rhythm and a melody, it is defining.

People here can make fantastic drawings and paintings as copies, the artists here can make fantastic abstract paintings, the photographers can
make magnificent images, but art is now a thing onto itself. If an artist does not strike out in a very new direction he has not broken new ground.

Make great drawings and paintings is not standing on principles. Those works maybe great, but they are not cutting edge. People need
to go much further. Joe because neither of us are selling WELL, neither of us have anything to lose by experimenting well outside the norm.

By nothing to lose, van Gogh had no sales. I already have a better batting average than that.


Dave

I have never known an "average person".

Wise words, indeed! And worth remembering in all aspects of our lives...

- Richard Reeve
http://www.ReevePhotos.com

If your last name is Bell, then does this make you average? (^_^)

Suppose you scored a 94 on a test in 1970, and scored the same today. ... In 1970, you were a "B" student, but in 2016 you are magically an "A" student.

Similarly, the quantification of "average" can change over time, and so the average people that I might have known in 1970 are now above average in 2016,

Moral of the story: .. let's not forget the social categories defined on those numbers. ... It's more complex than simple math, ... like human personality.

Could be that it might be a matter of getting in touch with that very personal and private place inside us which is our true selves.

A kind of deeply imbedded narcissism resides there which is private and off limits to to all other people including one's family or spouse.

Then once an artist can fulfill themselves by creating work which is not sellable (due to it's explicitity) then maybe they have hit upon something. A writer who then writes a book which is to personal or honest to be published has gone into that deep creative space as well.

Could be why the greatest known artists were not commercial at their end of the business of art.

the musician in the orchestra are far tougher than the audience, one needs to earn their respect to able to lead them.

Alfred,

We are merely players.

Dave

I think most would agree that Alfred is definitely a conductor.

I never go out shooting wildlife with the thought "I wonder if this will sell".
I shoot for me and take images that I am proud to put on my own wall.
If others find my pictures captivating enough to purchase them that's a bonus!

I don't understand a drive to be "cutting edge" - most of the art in this world that I do not like is - or was - cutting edge.

I don't know what an 'average' person is or what their tastes are - I only know that the people I know, and their homes that I visit have flowers and landscapes hanging on their walls - very very few have cutting edge art or abstracts (like the ones I create). A few have family portraits - some painted, some photographs enlarged onto canvas.

rd Erickson

Speaking as to my photographer self - I don't go out to shoot what I think someone will like enough to purchase either - although I can't say that the thought isn't in my mind - It is when I download them and see them as others will see them that I cut to the chase and tell myself - "someone might pay for this one to hang it on their wall".

Roy rd Erickson

Joe, I am a one man band!

Well, I'm a huge fan of your music, Alfred.

The thing I admire about your work is that your subject matter is not necessarily unique.
It is the type of work that the "average person" would be happy to display.
Yet there is an undeniable magical quality to it that I find fascinating.

The word, "conductor" also refers to a conduit through which energy is transferred...

Thanks so much Joe! I love to find the beauty in the most common objects.