If a tree falls in the forest...it makes a lot of noise.

Someone who has known me for a very long time, greeted my desire to become an artist/illustrator with the helpful comment of ‘Is this just going to be another thing you fail at?’

In my charitable moments, I can see this as an expression of fear on my behalf, that I have already struggled to find my niche in life and suffered from depression as a result, so they didn’t want to see me put myself through the ringer again. In my less charitable moments, I roll my eyes and mutter a two word phrase which contains the word ‘off’ - but only in my head. Mainly because my head is the sort that constantly replays conversation from years back, and distracts me with rehearsing long dead arguments, sometimes with long dead people, and mainly because if I was to bring it up again, the person would deny ever having said such a thing and honestly, they’re worth more to me than an argument.

They are however, the same person who is very keen on the idea that success should never be judged by the financial reward attached to it, that to reduce creativity to something you can out a price on, is always too in someway cheapen and constrain it. They also don’t like peanut butter, but that’s not relevant here.

I do think they have a point in a way, though not about the peanut butter. If Vincent Van Gogh had become as famous in his life as he has after it, would he have produced the work that had made him famous? If his agent had advised that he needed to up his social media game, perhaps appears as a judge on Sky TV’s portrait of the year competition or go on Love Island, or that he needed to produce something more diverse than sunflowers, would he have created works that we now regularly consume in ways a diverse as Doctor Who and tea towels? 

Perhaps the opposite case is also true though - perhaps it is the discipline of working to a brief that brings out the best in most creatives, creatives who are not as inspired as Vincent? One only has to sit through the turgid excess of most ‘Director’s Cuts’, where films are stretched to match the authors’ original vision, to feel very glad that there are editors at work in the film industry to rein in the excess of ego and snip away the fat to get to the actual meat of the project. (That’s a lot of metaphor, which I hope also doesn’t obscure my  point.) Perhaps the most painful and tantalising thing about Van Gogh, is that perhaps if he had received financial and emotional support endnote taken his life, who know what else he might have created, where his vision would have taken him?

The thing about the whole purity of being an artist without commercial concerns (and believe me, if the fuel company would take payment in artistic purity, I’d be more than happy to oblige) there is an element of the falling tree in the title of this piece as well.

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound if there is no one to hear it, is a thought experiment which has always annoyed me, because it speaks of the same human-centric vision of the world that complains about wasps existing. People say ‘what’s the point of wasps?’ But this assumes that the world revolves around human needs and wants and wasps, who actually do a very vital job in the ecosystem, possibly a far greater one that most humans, exist in total disregard of humans. We are just not relevant to them, and the same goes for sound in a forest - if a tree falls there is a crash because of the laws of physics concerning force and its conversion to sound-waves; this waves exist whether or not a human ear hears them. 

However, the tree falling conundrum does hold true for art and creating art - if no one sees the art I make, does it really exist? Art is a communication, often in a visual form; a communication which is created solely for humans to experience. As much as I love animals, I doubt my cat cares one jot for what I’m painting, other than as a place to sit when my back is turned. They can’t see the painting, they cannot consider its symbolism and enjoy its colour - they can’t see as many colours as I see anyway - which is why I’m not creating art for them.

Sure, you can create art which is only for yourself, and the vast majority of art anyone makes only exists as a stepping stone to something else - vital and something you cannot do without, but never the less not for public consumption, much like teenage poetry. But there will come to a point when you produce a piece which speaks to you in some way, and you take the step to see if it speaks to anyone else out there - because that’s kind of the point of all the previous stepping stones.

Of course, it’s a daunting prospect, because as with all the ways we try and communicate, communication is notoriously fraught with dangers and misunderstanding, social humiliation and even violence, but creating something that really resonates with someone else kind of is the point. Sure, you can love your art and turn to it when you need the help or escape it offers, but that’s a little like turning to your reflection for a hug- ultimately unsatisfying.

To bring myself back round to my initial point, I think you can judge success by more than money, I think you can judge it by the moments where it speaks to someone else out there, a message in a bottle picked up on a the foreign shore of another consciousness. But I don’t think that means that to make some money out of this is wrong, indeed, it’s kind of essential.  Not selling art does not mean you’ve failed, but it does make it harder to create more art. So here I am, not having failed, even though the struggle is real and there are plenty of times when I can’t create art because I have to earn a living in other ways too, but that’s ok - that doesn’t mean I’m not an artist. I also have peanut butter, so that’s always a win!

This piece and two others are forming part of the next ‘Secret Salon’ event, which is a projection installation at ‘The Safe House’ Peckham - July 15/16

You can find out all about it’s curator and what she’s established here

I’ll be exhibiting my new collection at the Untitled Arts Fair, July 12/13/14 at Chelsea Town Hall.