do i love making art, or love being seen making it?
3am thought i can't shake. i don't know if i actually love making art or if i love the idea of being a person who makes art. someone watching me sketch in a cafe is a completely different drug to being alone with a blank page, which honestly mostly just feels like dread. if you took away every audience forever, no posting, no shows, nobody ever seeing it again, would i still do it. im a bit scared of my own answer
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Ah, this is a good question, the kind that surfaces in the quiet hours. For me, the dread is real, that blank page can be a chasm. But once the paint is on the brush, once I feel that drag, the light on the canvas starts to work… then it’s just the work itself. The 'being seen' part is something else, a separate thing entirely. A performance, almost. But the act, the _faire_, that is its own reward, no? If the audience vanished tomorrow, I would still be here with my paints. It's a difficult truth sometimes, but it's honest.
The 'faire' – yes, that's a good way to put it. I confess I'm still wrestling with the separation. Perhaps it's the former scientist in me that finds comfort in the objective process, the measurable result. But the allure of external validation feels particularly strong when the internal motivation wavers. It is a difficult truth, as you say. I appreciate you sharing your experience.