Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

by David Bayles

Making art now means working in the face of uncertainty ; it means living with doubt and contradiction, doing something no one much cares whether you do, and for which there may be neither audience nor reward.

Art is human; error is human; ergo, art is error. Inevitably, your work (like, uh, the preceding syllogism...) will be flawed. Why? Because you’re a human being, and only human beings, warts and all, make art. Without warts it is not clear what you would be, but clearly you wouldn’t be one of us.

Your reach as a viewer is vastly greater than your reach as a maker. The art you can experience may have originated a thousand miles away or a thousand years ago, but the art you can make is irrevocably bound to the times and places of your life. Limited by the very ground on which you stand.

Seen against the vast sweep of history, it is only for brief moments that particular events and beliefs carry the power to compel us to build cathedrals or write fugues. And it’s just as likely that a similarly narrow (albeit different) range of beliefs drives all that is authentically available to us in this moment. Decisive works of art participate directly in the fabric of history surrounding their maker. Simply put, you have to be there.