Art that really connects with people tends to happen one of two ways:
1. An artist has a strong understanding of her audience and puts up a piece of work she thinks will delight/excite/challenge them. She loves her audience and she's doing for them. The audience can feel that love and they respond to it.
2. An artist has a strong personal desire to put a particular piece of art into the world. She doesn't really know how other people will feel about it. She doesn't really care. It's just something she has to create. Because of that desire she puts all of her love and skill into the work. People can see the skill and feel the love . . . and that's why they come.
That's what works. Here's what doesn't work:
- The lukewarm stuff. You aren't particularly excited about it. Neither is your audience. You're just doing because you couldn't think of anything better to do . . . and you had to do something.
- The self love stuff. You don't love the audience. You don't really care about the work. You just want the attention, or the money, or the fame. Going down that road is like playing the lottery. A few people with the appropriate amount of political skills, connections and luck will make it . . . the rest will crash against the rocks. For every ego filled artistic superstar, there are 1000 that tried to get to that spot and failed.
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