Ted Orland | Leslie Budewitz

Many of us find ourselves returning to the same themes in our work, exploring them in different stories or eras or configurations, or examining different aspects of them. Are we repeating ourselves, we worry, or getting at deeper truths?

“The artistic evidence for the constancy of interior issues is everywhere. It shows in the way most artists return to the same to or three stories again and again. … We tell the stories we have to tell, stories of the things that draw us in—and why should any of us have more than a handful of those? The only work really worth doing—the only work you can do convincingly—is the work that focuses on the things you care about.”

— Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland (The Image Continuum, 1993

The issues that matter the most to you—those are the heart and root and source of the stories only you can tell. And as the poet W. H. Auden said, “You owe it to all of us all get on with what you’re good at.”

I’ve been rereading Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland (The Image Continuum, 1993), spurred by my own bout of fear as I dive into a project that presents some craft and culture challenges. I was struck by this comment by the authors, both primarily photographers, on finding your place in the art world:

“[T]he unease many artists feel today betrays a lack of fit between the work of their heart and the emotionally remote concerns of curators, publishers and promoters. It’s hart to overstate the magnitude of this problem. Finding your place in the art world is no easy matter, if indeed there is a place for you at all. In fact one of the few sure things about the contemporary art scene is that someone besides you is deciding which art—and which artists—belong in it. It’s been a touch century for modesty, craftsmanship and tenderness.”

They wrote that 30 years ago. Their premise, which I’m paraphrasing, still holds true: We must find the meaning of the work in the work itself and in the working, not in its reception — or ours — in the larger world.