A for Art, A for Artistry, A for Acceptance

When I look around, the people, the fields that attract me the most are the ones related to Art; be it painting, or acting, or singing, or dancing, if it has a creative tint about it, this moth lingers to that flame without even knowing itself.

You can learn to code [(computer coding) no offence to coders], but can you learn to paint if, in your whole life, you have never picked a brush up or never even seen a canvas? To have a seed of an artist is one’s luck, to become an artist is one’s choice. Just because you can paint doesn’t make you a painter, similarly just because you can write doesn’t make you a writer. Right? Right. If one chooses to become an artist, only then can one become one. Art comes to you naturally, just like love, but you got to make it stay.

Those who consider themselves an artist, in general, most of them indulge themselves in their respective art forms for their own enjoyment, as their refuge; but, this also isn’t a hidden fact, being appreciated for the same art has and will never hurt any artist. It cannot hurt an artist.  Why would it?

Here is a beautiful line that I recently came across while reading ‘On Turtle Beach’-

‘‘That was the paradox of being an artist, any kind of artist – self-expression, but also needing some degree of appreciation.’’

Self-expression is the very root of any art; if it isn’t then that art is practiced only for commercial purposes, in which I’m least interested and many of you must be too. But, if performed for a second person and put on a public platform, acceptance of your art becomes a crucial element, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of in it.

No matter how highly we claim that we write or paint or sing or dance for ourselves, being accepted by a (huge or small) chunk of audience only boosts one’s confidence in one’s art. It might not mean the whole world to us, to get our art form accepted, but we cannot deny that – it does matter. Appreciation works as the dessert, at least that is how it works for me.

Now here is the tricky one – if only a group of hundreds likes your writing, does that make you lesser of a writer (or any kind of artist) than the one who is admired by thousands? For me, it never has, and it never will.

The issue with preferring an art piece over the other is that a person’s choice is highly subjective. What I love, you might hate, and what you love, there are chances that I might not be able to even stand it. If you do not like romance, you can never get to like Nicholas Sparks; if you do not have patience to wait till the last page to see a mystery getting resolved, you can never like Agatha Christie; if dark stories give you an ill-feeling, you can never get to like Stephen King, and this list can go on forever. You cannot make anybody like what you write, but there will always be somebody who will like your write-up without even you asking for it, and that is what an artist hopes for.

Hope – isn’t that what we all survive upon?

But why some (fiction) writers are more famous than others? Why some writers, who are equally talented as, say J.K. Rowling, aren’t even a name in the list of known writers? Luck? – yes, to an extent it is. The other and major reason is the choice of theme. Rowling created and painted a world so enchanting to which most of the people could relate to; the other writer’s (not-so-famous one) theme probably failed to do so.

The amount of one’s fandom doesn’t define one’s skill level but one’s relatability level. You like somebody if you relate to it; if you cannot relate to it, you cannot like it.

So, when it comes to art, the other two elements – Artistry and Acceptance comes complimentary with it; you have no choice but to have them along with art. But in which order you give them preference depends on you, your reasons to be practicing that art, your instincts that make the creativity flow through you. No artist is similar, and so is the case with every art piece.

What do you think? How much luck and how much of one’s talent pay off for an artist?

IF YOU ARE A FIRST-TIME VISITOR OF MY BLOG, DO REFER ‘First-Timers’. IT WOULD HELP YOU IN EXPLORING THE PLACE.

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