When it comes time to put those pictures or that sculpture that you have so carefully produced on the wall or on a display stand, the question arises of what to show where and what to hold back for that other show. It’s a question that, without significant experience, is almost impossible to answer. It’s nearly as difficult as the question of what pushes a collectors over the purchasing threshold, and what holds them back regardless of how much they like the piece.

Unlike performing arts audiences, if the visual and plastic arts audience doesn’t like what you hang on the wall or put on the stand, they don’t tell you; they just pass on by. So the artist is often left with questions about what appeals and what doesn’t, or to whom it appeals and to whom it doesn’t.

What it takes is curatorial ability. Brienne Walsh, in her article “Social Butterflies” in the June issue of Rangefinder, calls it an intuition, the ability “to decide what would appeal to other people.” And perhaps it is. It certainly seems that determining what will appeal to others is an instinct that some have and some don’t.

During my brief flirtation with DeviantART, I attempted to figure out posts would appeal to viewers, and I found that I was not particularly good at it. No pattern emerged, at least none that I was able to discern. Perhaps had I stayed with it longer I would have developed the skill, but given where I was at the time, I wasn’t willing to devote the time it would have taken. And I wasn’t sure that I would ever see a pattern.

Of course, one way to get around the problem is to publish everything at once. Then there is no question of what to show here or there or when or any of that. For some, particularly the prolific, this seems to work. If you follow any artists on Facebook or Tumblr or Pinterest, you have seen what I mean, but even that is curated, at least according to Walsh.

The answer, I think, if there is one, is to find out who your audience really is. For example, the initial audience in a juried show is comprised of the jurors. Sometimes I have successfully curated pieces in order to secure a place in such shows. Since most jurors’ names and information are not only published, but advertised, it is rather easy to research them and discover who they are and what they’re about, which leads one to make a more intelligent decision about what to present. Jurors like work that is in some way akin to their own, or, perhaps more importantly, reflects something of their philosophies. So knowing the taste of the jurors can guide you in what pieces to submit or, in some cases, tell you to save the entry fee because your work has little chance of being appreciated.

We should be able to apply the same principles to our individual potential audiences. Admittedly, the application will be far more difficult. Potential collectors are not likely to give us their backgrounds, interests, or philosophies. But if we start looking at what, beyond the superficial, our collectors have in common, we may begin to get a picture of exactly who, in a more abstract sense, our collectors might be. Once we know that, it is only a few steps to finding more people like that. And once that happens, we are well on our way to developing a tribe of collectors.

Early this week, in a discussion about art and creativity, I heard myself say, “I think art should be like holding up a mirror to give the audience something to reflect off of. “ During the remainder of the week I gave that statement a lot of thought—trying to decide if was really true.

In an earlier post I wrote about being a bit surprised about the variety of responses to my photography. Admittedly, my photography is abstract and pretty ambiguous. My photography is not about telling a story; rather, it is about making suggestions. There are two goals: (1) to make the best piece I possibly can, given the tools and materials at my disposal, and (2) to give the audience something that resonates— not necessarily something with which they will be able to identify, but something which in some way “reflects” them, i.e. something that provides a reflective surface that allows them to see something they need to see and feel something they need to feel.

This is not to say that there is no place for work that is literal and concrete. This is, of course, the basis for all photojournalism, where ambiguity is decidedly out of place. And I also do work that is both literal and concrete—theatre work. My feeling is that with dramatic art, the clearer the story is and the more definitive the character delineation is, the more the audience is able to become involved, and with that involvement move past the literal and into the figurative, symbolic, and suggestive, and thus find that which resonates.

Nor is this to say that the artist must suggest rather than make strong statements. Each artist needs to say whatever he/she needs to say and in whatever way will give the idea or feeling best expression. Rather, it is to say that the artist should leave some room for the audience—allowing them a part in their interaction with the work.

The fact is that meaning in art is a collaborative exercise. The artist certainly creates the work, but in the best art, the audience contributes as well. While there is general agreement on the message or meaning of a work, full meaning is finally a highly individual thing. Each audience member brings to the artwork his/her own experiences and feelings and desires and walks away from a piece of art or a performance with a unique feeling of what the work is about.

This notion was reinforced in the Rothko Chapel earlier today. The friend who was with me remarked, “I love to watch people when they visit here because it’s impossible for them not to have a reaction.” And those reactions are amazingly varied. Rothko leaves room for the audience, and he does it over and over again—in all his work. Some love his work; others hate it, but hardly anyone has no reaction, whether about the pieces in the Chapel, or elsewhere. While I have no doubt that Rothko was definitive about what he was putting on the canvas, what we now see is, in part, what he put there and what we bring to it. Good art, I think, works that way.

Some artists are aware that the audience incorporates its experience into its reaction to the artwork and strive to manipulate what that audience thinks and feels with regard to the work; others concentrate on putting themselves into the work and are insulted when the audience doesn’t see their meaning. My feeling is that we, as artists, should be aware of the nature of the audience/artifact interaction and at least consider what the audience might bring to the work, and subsequently take away. We might even try to facilitate that interaction.

A reader commenting on last week’s post cited the negative side of making the work match the movie in the artist’s head, and, in at least one case, re-working a published project once the technology became available. What is key here is the idea of re-working, re-doing, or modifying. When I wrote the original post, I was not thinking of work that had already been made public, but rather a work that existed nowhere except in the artist’s imagination. When the artifact already exists in the world, and the artist capitalizes on new technology or decides to modify that artifact for whatever reason, we have a completely different situation.

George Lucas decided that not only was he would use new technology to modify the original Star Wars trilogy in 1997, he would do so with a great deal of publicity and major re-release. If Lucas had done what other director/producers have done, he would have issued a “director’s cut” or “ultimate edition” on DVD when he found the technology, such as he did in 2004. This would have caused much less backlash. This is also the traditional way to make such changes in the cutting or modification of a movie.

Stephen King used a quieter approach when he rewrote parts of The Gunslinger, the first novel in The Dark Tower series. He modified the work, and the new edition was published—fairly quietly and with a full explanation from the author. Those who chose could pick up a copy of the rewritten work; those who were not interested could reread the copies they already had in their possession.

Lucas’ error, at least in my opinion, was concentrating on how he, the artist, felt about what had been and should have been created and ignoring the relationship between the audience and the artifact. Such a relationship develops, sometimes quite rapidly, and exists quite apart from any relationship the artist has with the artifact.

This is a lesson I learned not long ago. A collector of my work is also a person that I have to see fairly frequently in connection with my day job. One of my images hangs in his office, so I see it every time I visit. And every time I see it, I wince because I matted it “incorrectly.” Yes, it’s a detail; but to me, an important detail—something that was a “make it work” decision that doesn’t quite work anymore— for me. Finally I told him that I was thinking about re-matting it for him. He quickly informed me that I might see things that he didn’t, but that not only was he satisfied with the presentation, he actively liked it and would not appreciate my tampering with it. This made me re-think the whole idea. I can certainly modify matting for future prints of this particular piece, but I will probably leave his alone. It is, after all, his. He paid for it. He sees it every day and has feelings about it. I, on the other hand, see it only once in a while and in a completely different mental/emotional context.

If the piece in question is still in our imaginations, we can delay or modify or anything we want. If, however, the piece in question is in someone else’s possession or has been widely disseminated, we might want to be careful about modifying it. Just as the makers have a special relationship to the art they are making, so do the audience and collectors of those same pieces. The audience/collector relationship is very different, however. Someone sees something in our work that resonates, and decides that he/she has to own the piece in order to have that experience on a daily basis. Then that relationship further develops over time, and sometimes becomes just as passionate as that of the artist. And we, as artists need to be respectful of that relationship: it’s the very reason that we have an audience.

Not long ago I bought a painting from an artist whose work I appreciate. In the course of the post-purchase conversation, he turned to someone and said, “I have a new collector.” Never before had I thought of myself as a collector, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the new title. But I thought about it, and I thought about the other names that could be given to our relationship and decided that collector was probably the most accurate.

This, of course, led me to wonder what other artists call persons who buy their work. It’s curious but I don’t think I ever gave a name to that relationship. I would, like a number of artists I know, just say “sold a piece” without reference to the person who bought it. When I write, I have most often referred to those people in the collective, as the audience, but that word is a little awkward for those who are not someway involved with performance.

But I do know that how we label things (and people) will sometimes govern our relationships and attitudes toward them, so maybe this is a topic that deserves a little thought. Once we get past those who are “just looking,” there are four categories of people that you might find in your audience:

1. Fans are those who are interested in what you do, and sometimes in all that you do, but are not necessarily interested in buying anything. They want to stay informed about what you are doing, but they might be content to do that from a distance without ever actually interacting with you. Sports teams have fans, as do movie stars, and celebrities of all sorts. Fans are those who follow us, and, as we all know, some of us are interested in acquiring as many as possible. The very popular crime novelist Mickey Spillane, on the other hand, once said, “I have no fans. You know what I got? Customers. And customers are your friends.“
2.  Customers are people to whom you sell things. Some may become your friends as Spillane suggests, but mostly they are interested in purchasing your wares. You must presume that there is something in your work that they like, but you may never know what that is. Often you meet them only once and never again. The interaction can be as simple as the exchange of money for art or a complex ongoing relationship that does indeed turn into a friendship of sorts. Customers buy commodities.
3.  Clients are repeat customers, or at least there is a connotation of repeat business in the word. There is also the connotation of work for hire. Commercial photographers have clients, as do designers, doctors, and lawyers. But there are two important things about clients that differentiate them from other categories: they have input, no matter how small or insignificant, into the work, and they themselves are the ultimate judge of whether the work is satisfactory.
4.  Collectors are those people who want to possess your work enough to give you money for it. They appreciate what you do and so want to own it. They differ from customers in that they are less about buying a commodity and more about purchasing a representation of how the creative side of your mind works. Sometimes, like customers, they are only interested in purchasing only one piece; other times you find that what you produce speaks to them in such a way that they will want multiple pieces. And you will probably find that relationships with collectors are well worth nurturing—for more than financial reasons.

There are probably more than four categories of audience members. But I suspect that you will find that these four make up the bulk of your audience. Remember though that fans can turn into customers can turn into collectors. So we need to learn to address them all—and build a tribe.

How far will you go to sell you art? It’s a question that would not have occurred to me several years ago, but recently several things have happened that brought the question to my attention.  The first was a conversation that I overheard recently at the Houston ArtCrawl between two established artists, one a sculptor and the other a painter.

The sculptor began the conversation by stating that she had done art for other people for thirty years and that now she was doing her own art. The conversation went on, and she suggested that she would not even entertain commissions—at this stage of her artistic life she was only interested in satisfying herself. The painter, on the other hand, said that she was happy to make a painting using colors that would complement the client’s décor, but that she would paint only what she wanted using those colors.

In another conversation, a man was explaining to a friend that another artist in the show was going to make an individualized print for him with his girlfriend’s name replacing the existing word in the for-public-consumption print hanging on the wall, something the first two artists would never consider doing.

In conversations with other artists this week I heard a number of related stories. One was about an artist who did a commission and sent a photograph to the collector only to have the collector respond by asking for changes in the piece. Another story was about an artist who had a long-unsold piece that had finally found a buyer, if the artist would make certain modifications. The question then was whether to make the changes and sell the piece or to decline and keep it, perhaps for another long period. For some artists, such as the sculptor mentioned earlier, this is not a tough decision; for others less resolved, it is perhaps more difficult.

Fine artist or commercial artist, there are just some things to which you do not want your name attached. But it can get complicated, particularly when you do commission work. For example, the article in a recent issue of Rangefinder Magazine called “Saying No…” explains to photographers ways to refuse a request and keep the client.

Judging from the fact that these conversations are taking place, there seems to be interest in customized art work. I guess it’s not a novel concept, but it’s not something to which I had given a lot of thought. During a discussion of the topic, a friend asked if I would change the wording on the interior of the cards that I produce if someone wanted to buy a set of custom cards. The answer was “of course.” But then I had to stop to examine my response. I consider the cards commodities—based in art, but a commodities nonetheless, so in my mind there is no difficulty in customizing the wording. If it were a limited edition print, or even an open edition print, I would have far more difficulty and would probably say no. For me then, it seems to be about the category of the work in question, as well as whether the request is to create new work or modify existing work.

Likewise, I imagine that every artist has his/her own threshold of willingness to customize art for the collector, and in those cases where the artist is willing, his/her own set of criteria for customization. If it’s something you haven’t considered, you might want to spend a little time thinking about it. If you are in the arts, sooner or later someone will ask. I would be interested to hear any ideas you have on this topic.

A while back, a friend of mine went to work as a studio assistant for a high-dollar photography studio.  After hearing about how people would travel across the country and pay enormous amounts for headshots, I went to the studio’s web site to see what was what. Everything was pretty. And I do mean pretty. Very slick, very commercial, very pretty—technically perfect, in fact—but completely soulless. All of the images of a type looked alike, down to the makeup. The photographers had found the formula for commercial success, but not necessarily for creating art.

Art may be pretty, but that is not a necessity. In fact, many artists bypass pretty, and attempt to create art that is beautiful. And beauty is an entirely different animal. Beauty goes far beyond mere pretty; for some, prettiness actually interferes with the beauty of the art.

Many artists believe that to be truly beautiful, something must have some strangeness to it.  This sentiment has been expressed by artists as disparate as Karl Lagerfeld, Edgar Allen Poe, and Sir Francis Bacon. The poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire has said “’I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which is no melancholy.” Author Stephen Crane has gone so far as to defend ugliness in art: “I cannot see why people hate ugliness in art. Ugliness is just a matter of treatment.”

Although there is little agreement among aestheticians on what beauty is, there is general agreement that it conveys something meaningful and significant to the viewer. Regardless of the medium, if you ask knowledgeable people about the best art, the most beautiful art, you are very likely to get answers that include plays and poems and novels and paintings and sculptures and films that are anything but pretty. They may be uplifting or depressing or breathtaking or sad or heartwarming, but they are likely not to be attractive, and they certainly will not be superficial.

The artists who created such art will have told their audiences the truth. And even though that truth may be uncomfortable, it will have been presented in a way that invites contemplation, consideration, speculation, thought. Even art that appears initially to be whimsical or humorous does this. Art, good art, does not worry about being pretty; rather, it tells us something, often something that we need to know—although we may not want to hear it—and it tells us in a way that strikes a resonating chord within us.

Sometimes I hear [visual] artists say with reference to the art they make, “but no one will ever hang this on a wall.” (The equivalent for the writer is “no one will ever publish or produce this.”) They say this because the art they make is not pretty. If they want to produce pretty, then perhaps they should be into the more commercial illustration or decoration business.

Art is a different thing. And most collectors of art know this and dress their walls accordingly.  Just in the last week, I have seen hanging in residences images that tell stories about relationships, memorials, ambiguous abstract ideas, abandoned buildings, cemeteries, nudes, burned homes, flowers, complex concepts. Only a few were pretty in any kind of conventional sense; some were not even attractive. All were beautiful. All were compelling. All invited contemplation. They were not only art; they were good art.

And that’s just two-dimensional visual art. We haven’t even touched three-dimensional art, music, dance, theatre, film, or the various written genres.

Sometimes in art there is a place for pretty, sometimes not. If you are an artist, make the art you need to make. Make it the best you can to say what you need to say, what your audience needs to hear. And, if you are tempted to dress it up a bit here and there, remember: it ain’t about pretty.

In her YouTube video “Why I Do Theatre,” Patsy Rodenburg declares that actors are dangerous, and then goes on to remind us that some of the first people to be taken to the camps in Nazi Germany were actors. For example, cabaret performer Max Ehrlich was imprisoned, then tortured, and finally executed at Auschwitz.  She also says that all of the actors she worked with in South Africa after Apartheid had been tortured—because actors are dangerous. Tortured. All.

“This could not possibly apply to me,” you are probably thinking. “Surely all those actors were political” Not necessarily. There are and have been a number of artists who have been considered dangerous by their governments, and it does not seem that being politically active is the criterion by which such things are judged. Consider the diversity and politics of these artists who were either exiled or executed by their governments:  the Roman poet Ovid, the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, the Spanish poet/playwright Frederico García Lorca. You will note that the work of some of these is completely apolitical.  And currently, the Chinese government considers painter/sculptor/installation artist Ai Weiwei to be a threat.  

Sometimes the artists themselves are not targeted, but their works are. The list of books, poetry, music, plays, paintings, and sculptures that have been banned is long and varied. Usually there are specific reasons for banning works of art, but they all boil down to the same thing: the fear that audience members will somehow be contaminated by the offending work. The range of reasons is enormous and borders on the irrational. The works banned and the reasons are so extensive, there are even entire college courses on the subject. But regardless of the reasons, one must assume that the reason art works are banned is because someone with influence considers them dangerous to some segment of the population. By extension the creators of such work must also be dangerous. 

They’re just artists; why would anyone consider them dangerous?

Not long ago I was on a hiring committee for an art instructor.  One of my standard questions for potential hires in the arts is, “given the current political climate and constantly-looming budget cuts, why is it important that we teach art?” Never are two answers the same, and often they provide insight into the person interviewing. One of the applicants for this latest position gave an answer that I had never heard before. He said that art teaches a different way to think about the world. Then he went on to say that politicians sometimes prefer that we think the way we are told rather than approach the world with an artistic outlook. How did he arrive at such an opinion? Perhaps it was by growing up in a small South American country, where, it seems, art really matters.

His view is certainly not typical of the US. We have a different view of art here. As Stephen Colbert, an artist himself, says, “In America, we know to ignore artists if they’re serious in any way.” Colbert’s comment seems an accurate representation of the view of many Americans. Because of that, many of us, particularly those of us whose work is devoid of anything overtly political, have seldom thought of our work as having dangerous potential. Perhaps it would be well for us to take the time to acknowledge the power that we possess and to recognize that we too might be dangerous.

Scratch an artist and, in a great number of cases, you will find self-doubt and insecurity. This is far different from the image of the artist that circulates in the media, that of an arrogant, conceited, individual who is sure that his/her vision of the world is the only correct one. As Jon Pareles has said in the New York Times, “Artists are… stubborn egomaniacs who are mysteriously – and sometimes correctly – certain that the world needs to know all about the figments of their imaginations and who gear their lives to getting those figments into circulation.”

In theatre we spend a good deal of time encouraging egotistical behavior. It is necessary to an actor’s survival.  First comes the audition, where actors have to adopt the attitude, “you can’t possibly do this show without me.” And then, once cast, their job is, in part, to say to the audience, “look at me; look at me.” This done correctly we call presence, and we applaud those who have it.

At the same time we try moderate overweening egotism on the part of any theatre artist. No actor or director or designer works alone. Theatre is a collaborative effort, and nothing is more off-putting than the performer who “believes his own press,” who is sure that he/she is superior to those with whom he/she works. This behavior is particularly repugnant in actors (or any other artists) who think they know more than they actually do and want to trumpet their superiority to the world.

What can be said of actors can be said equally of any artist, collaborative or not. Many less-secure artists have been advised by friends and colleagues to “put it out there” in order to make their work better-known and achieve sales. At the same time we all know artists who are certain that they are the most creative person to walk the planet and whose work is far superior to anything that has come before or will come in the future, and who will tell you so at any opportunity.

There is no doubt that to make art and show it to an audience requires ego. You have to have that “look at what I made” mentality. Unfortunately, this often leads to “what I made is the finest thing that was ever made and I am the finest maker who ever was.” Sometimes this is a case of self-confidence gone out of control. Other times it’s an attempt to conceal a deep-seated insecurity and anxiety. Regardless of the causes, such an attitude can diminish the audience’s respect not only for the artist but for his/her work.

The working artist needs need self-confidence tempered with a healthy dash of humility. This is not just about how we are perceived; it’s about an approach that keeps us focused on our work instead of on ourselves. We must overcome our insecurities in order to create and display our work with confidence and, at the same time, remember that too much pride can get in the way of creating the very work of which we are so proud. We must remember that both ends of the ego spectrum are about ourselves and not about our art, and take steps to avoid those extremes. As Ram Dass has said, “the Ego is an exquisite instrument. Enjoy it, use it – just don’t get lost in it.”

Not long ago, a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video entitled “Why I Do Theatre,” which is a brief talk by Patsy Rodenburg. It is a must-see for anyone involved in theatre. Actually, it is a must-see for anyone who makes any kind of art. Rodenburg has packed so many ideas into this six and three-quarter minute video that it will likely become a source for several other posts. But her main point is that she does theatre because theatre allows actors (and playwrights) to tell the truth, whether the audience likes it or not, and that is worth doing.

Not only do actors and playwrights get to tell the truth, but so do painters, and poets, and photographers, and dancers, and sculptors, and writers. So do we all in the arts, if we are brave enough to not care whether the audience likes us or not, and actually put the truth as we know it on the paper, into the sculpting medium, on the stage, on the dance floor, into the film, on the canvas, into the music.

This seems obvious for photojournalists— at least the good ones—as any display of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs will attest. This is also true of their counterparts who work with words. But what about the rest of us who deal in works of drama, or fiction, or non-realism? How do we present the truth? The answer, of course, is that we wrap it up inside our fiction or whatever it is that we create and present it to our audience and hope that they see it.

This is the case with the actress that Rodenburg discusses who “made a sound” that was bitterly truthful and impactful—in a production of a fictional 2400-year-old tragedy. It does not matter that a play (or any art work) is fictional; it matters that the emotions and feeling and ideas that it contains are truthful and portrayed in a way that communicates that truth.

This idea of presenting the truth inside a fiction has been put forward by all sorts of artists from Stephen King to Pablo Picasso. King said “Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.” Picasso’s statement is a little more complex: “We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.”

Aside from the problem of developing the techniques to persuade others of the truthfulness of our work, there are two problems in putting truth into what we do as artists. One has already been mentioned; it is the knowledge that if we are truthful, some in our audience may not like us. Many artists equate being liked with sales and so will do nearly anything to make that happen. Perhaps they have forgotten why they got into art in the first place. Or, as I have said before, perhaps they just have not found their tribes yet. It seems to me that for the serious artist, being appreciated is far superior to being liked.

The second problem is that in order to put the truth into our work, we have to recognize the truth, and that can be very uncomfortable. Sometimes, we have to recognize the truth in ourselves, and to integrate that into our work we may have to expose ourselves. That can be even more uncomfortable. It can cause a disquiet that many of us would rather do without. But then again, I can’t think of anyone I know who became a serious artist because he/she thought it would be comfortable.

Art does not have to embody the truth, but probably all meaningful art does in one way or another. Some think that truth is one of the things that makes good art good. But incorporating truth in our work may not be the easiest thing we ever do. As Hazel Dooney points out, “Art is not truth. But it is more powerful when it is based on truth, especially the truths we find most discomforting.”

On a recent episode of Project Runway, Michael Kors commented that fashion is always “about balancing art and commerce.” He went on to tell the emotional Elena Silvnyak, “this is your shining moment that you found the balance.”  Nina Garcia followed up with idea that successful design is “not about stifling creativity,” but about “being creative and taking chances” and balancing that with customer appeal. (This last phrase is my wording, not hers.)

Substitute “audience appeal” for “customer appeal” and the same statements could be made about not only about any of the performing arts, but about virtually any art. Certainly film must appeal to an audience if it is to be financially successful. Live theatre too has to fit within the range of audience acceptance, which, as any theatre practitioner will tell you, is contextual. Dance is the same way, as is music.

The same concept applies to visual and plastic arts as well. There are endless stories of paintings, photographs, and sculptures that received critical acclaim and did not please their immediate audiences. The photography of Robert Mapplethorpe jumps to mind, as does the David Wojnarowicz’s video “A Fire in My Belly.”

And, of course, much that is written, whether it is words or music, does not find an immediate audience beyond critics and a tiny group aficionados, sometimes for less than artistic reasons—consider the publication history of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Some of the art that was not initially well-received, or was prevented from being received at all by authoritarian intervention, has had to wait for years for general acceptance. Some has never received it, at least in certain localities, particularly if the subject matter is religious or sexual. For example, Nagisa Ôshima’s film, In the Realm of the Senses, released in 1976 and considered by some to be a cinematic masterpiece, still cannot be shown completely uncensored in Japan.

The fact that some art is not immediately accepted by a general audience certainly does not mean that that the work is not good, merely that it has not (yet) found its audience. The question for the artist is not about the quality of the work, but whether he/she has been able to balance creativity and the appeal of the work to a purchasing audience. Being ahead of your time may produce some masterpieces, and certainly some controversy, but often it won’t pay the bills. So the problem for the practicing artist—at least for the majority of his/her work—is to find that balance that Michael Kors mentioned, the equilibrium between artistic vision and audience appeal.

And finding that balance is difficult, regardless of your art. If you move too far in one direction, you find yourself pandering to the audience instead of really creating. You quit making art and start making artless commodities. Your work becomes all about chasing the dollar, or yen, or euro and not about all of those things that you used to think art was really about. For musicians, and maybe for others, it’s often called “selling out.”

If you move too far in the other direction, you lose your audience, and you may run afoul of censors, whether official or unofficial. You make things that may or may not garner critical acclaim, that appeal to a tiny segment of arts-appreciating community, but you move so far beyond the majority of members of that community that you find yourself unrewarded financially.

If you are compelled to say things with your art that will prevent that art from being appreciated by a paying audience—and many artists are—by all means do so, but with a full understanding of what you are doing. If, however, you want to say what you have to say and get paid for it, your dilemma is exactly the same one that Elena Silvnyak and every other artist with a strong point of view or a clear artistic vision faces—how to find that place where everything balances, where one can follow one’s vision and create, yet at the same time incorporate that creation into a form that an audience—and it certainly does not have to be a huge one— can understand, appreciate, and pay for. It may not be easy, or even doable, but it’s worth your time to investigate the possibilities.