Art Without An Audience

So let me ask you a question.

If no one ever saw your work, would you still make it?

No likes, no followers, no audience waiting, just you and the process.

In a world where everything is shared, posted and measured, it's easy to forget that art didn't start as a performance.

Now, in this episode, we're talking about what it means to create without an audience, why it feels harder than ever, and why it might be the most important art you make.

Because at some point, every artist has to answer that question.

Would you create if no one was watching?

Hello, friend.

Started this way back in March, started a new series called Create Anyway, you're allowed to create art.

And today we're going to be talking about creating art when you don't have an audience.

And that is perfectly okay because sometimes you're not going to have an audience, especially when you're starting off.

Something in the podcast world that we talk about is we all start with two things.

No audience and our integrity.

And same thing goes for artists.

You start off with no audience and your integrity.

And that can be daunting, especially when you're hearing crickets all the time.

But we're going to help you out with that in this episode.

So in this first action, we're going to be talking about when art becomes performance.

Now, social media has really blurred the lines in the past, I don't know, 10, 15 years.

So who knows when you pick this episode up, but social media really blurred the lines between creating and sharing.

And here's the thing, a lot of artists measure the value of their work and a lot of coaches tell you to measure the value of your work by likes, engagement and attention that it brings.

And there's a lot of polls on our audience's attention.

A lot social media, streaming services, movies, not so much going out to the movies, their personal life, their work, their family, the news that's going on at the time.

So people are.

Your audience is really stressed out because there's so many, so much pull on their attention to get eyes on the screen or get butts in the seat and all that.

And that's one of the realities that we're facing.

But when you continually show up over time, the audience that you develop can become the reason you create instead of the result of creating.

So this is something you got to ask yourself, am I doing it just to get likes?

Just to get thumbs up.

Smashing the Bell on YouTube.

Notice I usually never say that in any of my YouTube episodes.

Or are you just going to create and let the audience come and find it and do it?

You can stand out on the street corner and go, hey, I got a new piece of art out there.

Or you can develop your audience, you can know who your audience is, know who your customers are, whatever you want to call them, your followers, I don't care.

But when you develop that and cultivate that and grab their attention and let them tell other people about it, then you're going to be in a much better place because then you're going to be creating for creating sake, not creating to get attention, not creating to get likes.

So it's a mindset shift that, you know, instead of creating for all this stuff, which is what everyone's telling you to do, otherwise you'll never get found.

And that's probably true.

But to make the big shift of I'm going to create and if people pick it up, great, I hope they do.

That's also not to say go into your studio and never come out again and just create a million works and then when you die, people will discover it now.

But what I am saying is to not worry about the likes, not worry about the engagement that much.

So I'm not that worried about engagement.

There's people that do likes on the social medias that I post this on.

That's appreciated, that's great.

But I don't do it for that.

I do it for me to remind myself that creativity is a good thing and for the folks that listen to it.

And there's a sizable amount of folks that listen to this, I do it for them.

So that way they're not feeling so alone out there.

But if I get a million likes, or if I get two likes, okay, yay, I'm putting it out there and that's what I'm happy with.

All right, now we're going to move on to the pressure to be seen.

And there is an unspoken expectation today, and that is if you're not sharing your work, does it even count?

And this happens again.

I bring the podcasting world into this.

If you're not sharing, if you don't have engagement do you even really count?

Do you even really matter?

And some people make.

They're living through podcasting and they have to hit huge numbers to do that.

And are.

Are they following their.

Why?

What got them into podcasting?

What got him to start that podcast?

I don't know.

Most likely, not most likely.

They're doing stuff that they know formulaically.

They'll get the most likes for, they'll get the most engagement for, and then they'll get paid for.

But I say that even if no one listened to this podcast, it still counts.

It still counts in my mind.

Still counts if no one listens to it.

If you shut this podcast off right now, never listen to it again.

I'm still going to put out episodes.

I still am.

Okay.

Because again, I do this for me and I do it for you, and I get a lot out of it, and it's my hope that you do, too.

But if you shut it off right now and never listen to it again, yeah, I'm going to be a little bit crestfallen at that.

I'd like to know why for sure.

But you know what I'm not going to do?

I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

I do always ask for any critiques, any ideas that you have.

Maybe there's something out there that I'm not covering that you think I should be covering, or you have an idea of arts that I'm not talking about, that you'd like me to talk about or weigh in on.

Great, that's fine.

I'm good to go with that.

But again, if you shut the pond, you shut this video or this audio off right now, I'm not going to lose sleep.

And it develop.

You develop a thick skin after a while.

It's not that I don't care.

It's that I'm.

I know why I'm creating and I'm staying true to why I'm creating.

So if it's not for you, it's not real.

And that's okay.

And that's a attitude that get from Seth Godin.

But that's an attitude that I think is very healthy and helpful to artists, especially if you're just starting off.

If people aren't following it, it's okay.

We all start with zero.

If we are of that unspoken expectation of if you're not sharing work, does it count?

It creates so much pressure on you to document and post and perform instead of just simply creating something.

So just create something.

Forget about the social posts.

Forget about running out in the middle of the street in your underwear going, hey, I made a dance today, or I made a sculpture today.

Just go and make that sculpture.

Do that dance.

Just do that.

The audience will find you.

The audience will come.

All right, let's go on to rediscovering private creativity.

Now, some of your most important work is going to happen in private.

It's not going to see the light of day.

It is going to go to your grave with you.

And that's your experiments, that's your unfinished ideas.

And sometimes you're gonna do stuff that is so personal, you're not going to share it with the public, no matter what.

And that's okay.

That's.

This.

Is this experimentation, these false starts, these things that are really personal to us.

That's how you develop your voice.

And you know that it's not going to go out there and nobody's going to see it.

So you don't have to worry that is that going to sell.

You just do it.

And maybe you hang it up on your wall or you have that video privately for yourself.

Great, that's for you.

Some art that you make is going to be for your audience.

Some art is going to be made for you.

And it's important that you have that work for you, because it's going to be important.

At some point, yes, you're going to pass away and die, and your heirs or your estate will find it and they'll make the best billions of dollars off of it.

But you need to save some in the tank for you.

You need to have something in the tank for yourself.

For you.

Rediscover that private creativity.

Give yourself a gift.

And as I always end out these episodes, make some art for somebody you love yourself.

It's not just a tagline.

You need to make something for you.

And now we're going to talk about detaching from validation.

Now, when you don't have the millions of Doring fans and it's not immediately seen out there, you have a deeper question.

Why am I even doing this?

Now, when you don't have motivation from the external world, from the audience or whomever, you gotta figure out in your heart, why?

Why are you doing this?

That motivation needs to come internally.

It needs to be there.

Regardless of what's happening in the outside world, you need to know that you're here to create some art.

And even if it's just for you, even if you never sell a painting, that's okay, that's all right.

You made some art, and that's what's important.

The Audience, the adolescence, all that kind of stuff will come.

And yes, it is good to.

To get critique from external sources so that way you can improve yourself and grow as an artist.

But that may not be that you're selling artwork and you're getting that.

That validation or that critique because you're selling artwork.

Sometimes you just need to talk to somebody that you trust and that you respect, and in order to get the critique to make you better.

But you're not going to get that kind of critique from an audience that is validating your work externally.

It needs to come from you first.

And then if you want to get better, you speak with a mentor, a coach, what have you, and they can help you out.

A teacher, and then maybe you can go out into the world.

But that validation's got to come from you.

I can't put it in you.

I can't put that validation in you.

It's got to come from you.

All right, so you're a new artist, you're in your middle ages, or you're just at your first career job or something like that.

Your audience comes later.

And here's the thing that'll scare a lot of you out there, or not at all.

Audiences grow and shrink over time.

I grew up in the late 70s, 80s.

I remember a band that I really liked was Kiss, and they were huge in the 70s, and maybe early 80s, like 81, maybe 82.

And then people just got tired of it and they went away.

And that audience comes and goes, gets bigger, gets smaller, gets bigger, gets smaller.

But.

And.

And Kiss is probably a bad example because yeah, they are in it for the money, they're in it for the art of it.

But there are in it for the money.

And that's okay, that's good on them.

But with your work, that shouldn't be the foundation of your creative practice.

Just create.

That's all you need to do.

Art that is built without dependence on attention is more often.

It's honest, it's personal, it's sustainable.

I had a poem about slam poetry a long time ago, and in that poem I was talking about, I know the formula to get a good score in a.

In a judged slam poetry thing.

But what does that do me?

I know how many times to say colorful expletives, drop the F bomb, say this, say damn the man and blah, blah, blah.

But what does that get me?

It gets Me a score at a poetry slam event, which I do love slams, don't get me wrong.

But I know the formula to get the score that I want.

But that's.

I'm just playing a system.

I'm just playing a game there.

I'm not making art.

I know what the audience wants to hear.

And I can say the drop the F bomb so many times.

As a matter of fact, there is one poem that I did drop the F bomb a bunch of times.

And our local NPR channel was doing a recording of this poetry reading for.

For veterans and they bleeped out and their bleep button got real tired and a lot of the meeting of the poem was missed because of the bleep.

But I understand they have FCC regulations that they can't knock, they can't ignore.

So we got to remember that audience will come later and it may not come at all.

It's okay.

It's all right.

Just keep on making your art, keep on getting critique, keep on learning.

It's going to get better.

People are either going to find you or they're not there.

We understand that.

There's a lot of pull on their attention now.

If you want to jump in that game and play that game, great, go for it.

You're going to lose.

Eventually you will lose.

It's not a game you can win.

It's a game that you can.

It's a war that you might win a few battles, but you're not going to win that war.

So create for you.

All right, so thank you so much for either watching on YouTube or for listening on your podcast app of choice.

If you got something out of this, please feel free to share it with a friend.

You have your podcast apps, have the share button, your YouTube, the YouTube as I used to say.

Or no, I actually used to say the Twitter.

But YouTube has the share and all that kind of stuff.

If you think it's going to help somebody else out, hey, by all means, share it.

If you want to keep it for you, keep it for you.

Absolutely.

But I really hope that this gave you something to really think about.

And even if you already have a well established art career going on for yourself or a nice side hustle, let's keep it about the art and not about the likes.

Just think on that for yourself.

If you want to reach out to me, my email is timothyreateartpodcast.com and I gotta say, it's been a interesting ride.

This is the 14th episode in this series.

It's been an interesting ride.

We've got another episode to go, and I can't wait to knock that out and pass it on over to you.

So.

Tame your inner critic.

Create more than you consume.

This whole episode was about what I'm going to say next.

Go out there and make some art for somebody you love.

Yourself.

Audience be damned.

Go make it for you.

Go do it today.

I'll talk to you next time, Sam.