Being Your Own Audience

by savannahkopp

The Free Play chapter talked about not changing your art to appeal to people, not trying to make things more commercial or accessible or anything different from what you intend it to me. This dedication to your own artistic vision, an integrity based on preserving your initial intent and not “selling out” or dumbing down your art, is certainly valuable advice. But think of the art that you look at or watch or read or listen to that is just awful or highfalutin or inaccessible–the strange experimental music or the stream-of-consciousness-never-been-edited-written-on-a-roll-of-toilet-paper novel. For these obscure pieces of art, is all that matters that the person who made them is satisfied with what they made? Do we as viewers/readers/critics then have no say in the quality? I understand that most art has certain audiences and that not everything is meant (nor should it be) to appeal to wide groups of people. But I disagree with the chapter’s assertion that changing to appeal to an audience should be avoided at all costs. Preserve your original artistic intent, of course, but if you want to make an impact, or be received, at least consider your hypothetical audience–people who are probably like you in their artistic taste. I’m not saying create FOR an audience, but consider your audience–especially for other types of art, which go through revisions, perhaps in the first draft you write for yourself only, and after that, you find out what you’re trying to say and express it more clearly. Clarity is vitally important, in my opinion–maybe you have a great idea or passion but if no one can understand what you’re saying or showing, you may as well not have said it or showed it at all. Maybe I’m making this more simplistic than it is, but the point of my post is not that you should accommodate a theoretical audience, but that you should think of it, eventually, if it will help you find and achieve your purpose. Preserve your initial spark, but find a way to share it–because art is interaction. It goes on longer than it takes you to create it–and the power is that each person has their own experience with your art–so make it possible for them to experience it!