It goes without saying that censorship is debilitating to the artist. It’s a little less obvious (at least to artists) that censorship is an entirely natural state of affairs. Nature places a simple constraint on those who leave the flock to go their own way: they get eaten. In society it’s a bit more complicated. Nonetheless the admonition stands: avoiding the unknown has considerable survival value. Society, nature and artmaking tend to produce guarded creatures. The dilemma here is that for the artist, contact with subject and materials must always remain unguarded. In making art you court
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