If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around, does it make a sound? Yes, it does! Human beings aren't the end-all-be-all of objective truth. As you read this little blog piece, Jupiter is still a planet. We don't need to collectively have our eyeballs on it to make it exist. It's doing fine on its own, and it doesn't need our human approval (I wish I was more like Jupiter). The philosophical question is intended as a sort of thought experiment and/or questioning the very nature of existence. I bring this up to discuss the process of making art.
I think about this often. Why make art? Why bother? Who cares? I care, but why? I subscribe to the Yoda philosophy of: do or do not; there is no try. I make art, because I'm an artist. I do Jiu-Jitsu, because I can. I say what I think, because I don't live in China. I have a very small audience of folks who look at my work. Only about 800 people theoretically view my work. I don't have the influence to reach thousands, as of yet. So, why bother? I went to art school, and drank the Kool-aid a couple decades ago. Only so few of the artists I know are continuing to pump out art on the regular. Why have I stuck it out. Maybe, I'm OCD. Maybe, I'm afraid of it ending. That ending would mean a death to the identity I took on so long ago. That would be a terrible feeling to die, and resurrect into a new version of myself. I wouldn't know what I'd become. It would be like losing my religion.
I've made art since I was a toddler with Crayola (which I still use on occasion). Did my art exist if nobody was around to see or hear it? Yes, it's as real to me as my righteous indignation against the establishment. This is what I've been juggling with in my journey of artist-hood. If I make a drawing, and nobody is around to see it... what the hell is the point?
What is the point of any of it? Is there a God? Does he give a shit? Is this a simulation? Would that change any of it anyway? If I get to be sixty years old, and I still only have 800 people to potentially see my work is that worth it? I'm not earning more money. I'm not achieving the things of worldly gains. I have a blind faith that the process is holy. I think it goes beyond the ritual, the familiar, or my potential OCD. I reach a different stage when in the process of making and/or seeing art. It transcends, for me.
Some folks get into the arts for fame, fortune, and the spoils of being a celebrity. Even the folks that get there can't stay there in the worldly sense forever. When you started reading this piece you weren't thinking about Ernest Hemingway. In a sense, he was not existing, and then he was summoned into your consciousness. He was dead, and now resurrected... or at least his ghost was, and his words are left behind for us to invoke. My art mainly lives in the digital realm. It's not there to be purchased by rich collectors, or shown in the twisted temples of New York City. My art like an apparition appears on your screen to demand you make an opinion about it. Most people don't really know me, so the opinion isn't so much about me. The opinion is a reflection of themselves, and their values. They project their own hopes, dreams, and fears when seeing a piece by me. Some people get an affirmation from my image, and others get a slap in the face as what they know as true.
That's what I boil it all down to. Truth. There is such a thing, whether or not we exist. If I make a drawing, and nobody is around to see it does it exist. Yes, because I was there to make it. I saw it when it was a simple gesture. I nurtured it into a developed composition. I brought it to maturity, and we saw each other. Yes; trees, drawings, and Hemingway all exist whether or not you're around to perceive them. So, there is only do or do not. I choose to do, because I'm an artist.