My Inner voice,  what the hell is that?  It’s a question that has been bugging me for a very long time now.  It’s a question that will freeze me in my tracks every time I sit down to start a new work.  A question  I have to push aside every time I start.    It always comes back though.  As an artist I’m suppose to know the answer to this one.

Art school was suppose to be useful here, filling my head with lots of jargon, ways of talking about art, a frame of reference, context to allow me to place my work in the larger world.      To let others  see my work as part of something greater.   The frame of reference allowed my inner voice to grow to something more than it was, but at the same time it controls and directs and shapes that voice into something I don’t always recognize as my own. It’s funny how the jargon starts to shape the work.  Why does it so often feel like my work is the round peg  I’m trying to force into the square context?

I often wonder how important it is for my work to fit into some larger context.  It’s very tempting at times to let the work turn completely inward and shut out the world outside.  I suppose, to a certain extent, all artist works are little self contained worlds that a viewer must explore and discover.  It becomes a problem of accessibility then.  I think most artist , myself included, want their art to be recognized and understood to some degree.  There has to be some reference even if it’s a point of departure where the viewer can start.  

There’s the term “learning curve”,  which I usually come across  in computer software.  Learning curve refers to how difficult a computer program  is to learn how to use.  The easier a program is to use the more universal it becomes.  Art can be seen in this way as well.   Is the artist inner voice universally accessible or is it something more obscure?  What kind of work am I making as an artist?