Its embarrassing to post my thoughts up here alongside my artwork. Its hard to know if this is because the nature of the internet publishing – ‘blogging’ ‘posting’ and such – makes it difficult to edit ones thoughts carefully. I know someone who assures his readers right in the title of his blog that his thoughts are likely to be stupid at times. This is one of the perils of the internet age: instantaneous publication. Little or no editing. No peer review. No time to rethink one’s speech or even to choose silence.
But there’s something even more disconcerting about doing this as an artist - about posting right here on my art website. Why is that? Is its because there is something about the artists who talks that defies our image of the modern artist as necessarily enigmatic, elusive and detached, like one of the many mute objects on display? Is communication un-artistic? Is allowing oneself to be reached, to be understood by anyone, anywhere, at anytime, not properly elite? Why is it so risky for an artist to be transparent? To be accessible in the same way that a writer is accessible?
Is it worth the risk?