Hello, bloggers.

Not too long ago I was thinking about the great speech by Shakespeare’s Hamlet:  “To be or not to be...”

I think those of us who are artists deal with this question.  To be or not to be an artist...  To change or not to change our art according to what someone we respect—a doctor, an attorney, an accountant—or someone we don’t respect thinks about what we do.

So what is the answer?  Yes?  No?  Maybe?

I think that the integrity and the truthfulness of an artist—that is the question.  When do we put away our congeniality, the being civil to each other, the good girl, the good guy image, and defend what we’re doing in our individual manifestations of art?

Because art is a universal language, everyone has an opinion about it, and that’s great, because that’s the way it should be.  Some people are very prescriptive about what the artist should do, whether they should change it or modify it.

So as artists, what is our prerogative when it comes to the manifestation of whether we come to the defense of our art?  Do we have to tell everybody they’re a fool for not knowing what they’re looking at, especially during an art opening?

I think everyone can have whatever answer they want, looking at our work.  I believe where the problem could come in, is when we start doubting the deep well of our own integrity.

I think we have to remember that within each one of us is clear, clean, cool, churning water, and we should find that water and drink from ourselves—not be duplicators of things around us, but bring forward the new images and ideas and risks we’re taking in our art.

We should always keep in mind that underneath our feet, when we walk through the city, there’s raging sewer-water ready to creep in and adulterate what we’re doing.  It goes by different names:

“Ego”—I’m the greatest artist since Michelangelo!—

"Greed"—I want this to sell so I’ll be a multimillionaire!—

"Fame"—Look, everybody knows who I am!

And if we start making accomodations to those kinds of idiotic thoughts, we start drinking the sewage, thinking it contains the elixers other people have tried, and which we think we’re going to use in a different way.

When we start questioning our integrity, maybe it is time to question it.  When we start giving in to the false praises of a Xerox machine, duplicating our art because people like it, then we need to worry.

There is a psychological profile that when you’re in the audience and Elton John plays the first notes of “Rocket Man,” everybody applauds.  They’re not recognizing the song; they’re recognizing their own knowledge:  “I know what that is!”

So in the art world, if everybody says they love what you do, maybe it’s so loveable that it’s lost its charm.

As an artist, you’re sitting in a bunker, and everybody is yelling into it:  “It’s great!”  “It’s shit!”  “He’s wonderful!”  “She’s an idiot!”

Maybe we should look at our motivations.  Are we drinking from the depths of our own well?

Within you is the great power to present something that has never been presented yet to the world.  You won’t find it “out there,” you’ll find it inside yourself.

You have to give yourself the power and integrity not to care whether other people love it, hate it, buy it, or avoid it like the plague.  Getting to that point takes a lot of meditation, introspection, self-doubt, and self-pride.  It’s a lonely, exciting, wonderful, fulfilling voyage.

So don’t be distracted.

To be or not to be?  That’s up to you.

Matt