Where do I fit in? A response.
In response to a blog post that was referenced on “Conscientious” in connection to the idea that was expressed on Jane Tam’s Blog
Titled “Where do I fit in?”
This is one of the most difficult question that any artist/ photographer has to learn to navigate, how does one articulate one’s own vision of the world while at the same time managing to place one’s self in the spectrum of the artist/photographer community and gallery sphere. How do others see you and also possibly even more important ultimately how do you see yourself?
I personally think that how you see yourself becomes the bigger question, as how others see you is a bit like your identity, you can choose some parts but mostly “others” will choose your identity for you. You as the creator of your work can only promote or develop a market for your work. This is why we have portfolio reviews, gallery shows, art critics, websites and blogs in other words the whole scene all in the effort to promote and I know it’s a dirty word in the art world to “sell” our work.
Do we ever get known as artists for our favourite work (photograph) or most often it is our most well-known (if we become well-known) photograph, chosen for us by time and circumstances, those events that shape the social environment that we live in.
So where do any of us fit in? I guess, by doing the work that we feel compelled too and hoping that someone else somewhere out there likes it sufficiently to want to allow us into the art world.