I was once told that ‘even though you are a mature person, this does not mean that you’ll be a mature artist’. At the time, I wanted to reject the statement as it was a challenge to my ego! Since then, I have of course found it to be true. Being a mature artist would prove difficult for me to talk about, as I would not class myself as such. I am certainly more of a mature artist that I was, but this is also down to me consistently applying myself to the task, in the same way I would to refining my maturity as a person. The qualities each of us value most, those that we feel represent a mature person and mature artist, will of course vary. I have, in part gone some way to discussing what I think I need to balance in order to be an authentic artist (motivation, purpose and meaning) in a previous post. I’d like to attempt to do the same for ‘mature person’ and ‘mature artist’. Based on this, it seems there is the need to introduce the ‘authentic person’ as well. Are authentic and mature synonymous? When a person/artist matures do they become authentic? Or could the process be described as ‘authentically maturing’? Just to clarify, these are of course not separate identities within an individual, but are indicators of the amount of time spent on an activity, subject, practice or pursuit.
In my last post of this Short Thoughts series titled Corruption Sometimes Appears as Compromise, I alluded to what I called the Authentic Artist, which I summarised as follows:
“The authentic artist is what we aspire to and what our potential audience desires”
Since then I have been reflecting on what authenticity in relation to being an artist means to me. What I found ended up being both liberating and daunting, in that I realised I’ve been holding back a side of myself that I’ve not currently been expressing directly through my work. I understand that it’s not always the right thing to do to put all of yourself ‘out there’, but within the context of being as authentic as possible, it feels like there’s room for improvement and growth. What I came up with, were three things that I feel are needed to sustain and give the seal of authentic approval to my work. I see these as similar to the fire triangle, where in order to have fire there must be fuel, air and heat present. Take one or more element away and fire cannot be sustained.
So my three things are Motivation, Purpose and Meaning. I feel that when these are present, my work burns with authenticity in the same way as in the fire triangle. If one or more element weakens then my authenticity wanes in direct relation and I begin to notice something is ‘not quite right’. My three elements could be interpreted in different ways, so I will endeavor to clarify what they mean to me in another post. What are your three elements? Do you have any? Do you feel you are truly authentic?
