Possible answers from Bill
It is said that all art is autobiography. In a sense, art is inescapably the product of subjectivity, whether it’s individual or that of a group. There is a selection, a nomination, a perspective.
Should my art be about my life? My experiences? My memories? My meditations? Me grappling with existence?
You might adopt another perspective - a set of values, preferences, tastes, biases - as a hypothetical narrator of a text, an art, a set of selections (image, word, material, or processes). Feminist writer Ismay Barwell argues that all texts/art works have a hypothetical narrator that is independent of any actual author. The hypothetical narrator is determined by the perspective that guides the selections for the text/art. She doesn't make a distinction between language and image, both are signs and interpretable.
You are not alone in asking that question. That is connection to a multitude of voices asking the same question.
Is there a reason? Is there a purpose? Is there an answer?
Is my art giving me an answer?
Is it fair to say that only you can answer that question? From what I gather, it doesn’t seem to have provided you with answers.
Is there an answer? Can I even find an answer? Is there a meaning? What is the question?
Does my art give me an understanding of things or only more questions?
Do I have a need for story in my art? A narrative?
From what you’ve told me, you have a story, a narrative that your art may need.
What is the role of storytelling in art and in individuality?
It’s long question, thinking about the way knowledge and histories were conveyed, individuals taught about the values of the communities, through oral traditions prior to the emergence of the discipline of literature.
Is my art trying to make a connection with other people?
It seems from your presentation that you have presented art to others.
Is it the way that I process my own story?
By making art? Or by trying to use the art to connect to others.
Does my art have a “punchline”?
Why am I not producing enough for thesis? Why is thinking all that I’m doing?
Have you found a form that you feel is your own? That you feel personally invested in? It’s why I asked what you enjoy doing, or what you do when you are thinking. I have friends who listen to audio books when they make are because they are not thinking about the art. They are just doing with enough ability to multi-task.
Do I even need to make the work or is it enough to think about making it and how I would do it? Does there need to be a thing? Do I get enough satisfaction from just having these thoughts? Why be an artist if I’m only thinking and never making or doing?
Every concept has a form, from an utterance to pose. I’m thinking about Marina sitting in the chair staring at people. She has said she believes in ESP, or at least non-verbal communication. The artist Steve Lambert has a project where he sits and talks about anything with people. It’s possible to merge thought and performance, the dialogic, the social. Another Iranian artist I worked with stopped making objects to focus on one-on-one conversations with people and I think she shared some of your questions. Yes, you can make different types of things that are immaterial, though they still require planning, action, invitations, contexts...
If I’m using my art to understand myself and my experience, then why do I need to do any work outside of my own head? Do others every need to know or see? What do I want others to see? What do I want to share?
The question about connections seems pertinent. Also, others often provide confirmation of what we may know or think, not only validation, but a sense of shared reality, a consensus
does art that is resolved in form and content but having no end or lacking direction show indifference?
Art avoids answers I think. It privileges ambiguity, complexity.
Do I need to make work for other people?
Tolstoy would say no, that it should only be for yourself, but it doesn’t function in its way unless it is received. How it is received is vastly different question, but it’s not a binary when you think about the fact that you can make art for yourself and have it be received by people. The complication that is interesting to consider is who you imagine yourself to be, because that also imagines an audience.
Is my art selfish? Am I selfish?
Another way to ask the question is ‘why should anyone look at what I have done?’ What does the work give you? The artist Sharon Louden won’t work with artists who she doesn’t think shares, and at the same time, I know a critic who has said some of his favorite artists are assholes, self-absorbed, selfish, mean...
Am I making work for myself or for deadlines and for the consumption by and approval of others?
In school, this is a rhetorical question. Have you ever seen the reality TV show Work of Art? It literally makes real this question, 24 hour deadlines, a panel of judges, a prize...they even provided the questions about where to start making something.
What do I want to give to other people? Is that something I can give them with art? What do I want to share with other people? Is that something that is best shared with them through art?
Do you want to give other people you? Or do you want to share a story with them?
What do I want to manifest in the world? Do I want to manifest anything or am I okay with sitting alone and thinking and keeping it to myself?
The possibilities for connection are greatly limited by the latter. What would it be like to sit with another person or group and listen? Or perhaps ask a question.
What is the difference between myself and other people? Is my consciousness singular? How do I relate to other people as a singular being with no context other than my own and not theirs? How do we find a shared context and language? How do we share our consciousness with other people? Can we ever share our consciousness with others?
While language has its problems, thinking about latina, latino, latinx, we’re sharing a language in the context of a digital word processing platform where the information is stored in a metaphorical cloud. So, I think this qualifies, but technologically speaking, Marina aside, I don’t think we have the ability to share consciousness directly without some mediating sense. Science-fiction, something like Forever Peace, imagines future possibilities that have not occurred yet.
Maybe I don’t think in visuals? Maybe I think in words? Do I think in visuals or words? Do I think somehow else? Do I think in questions or answers?
I’m going to say you think in questions based on the empirical information in front of me. I can’t know if you think in images, but do you dream? Do you recall visuals? I have intense feelings of images from dreams. An interesting thing to consider is that language can be oral, image based, or character based, and different signifiers can still create meaning. I mean, what if the distinction isn’t reliable?
Do we need to connect with other people and know what they’re thinking and experiencing and share those things? Do I need to? Do I want to? Do I? Should I?
Is it fulfilling to me? What is fulfilling to me? Are things I enjoy fulfilling to me? Are things that entertain me fulfilling to me? Are things that make me cry fulfilling to me? Do I need to be fulfilled to be happy? What is the difference between fulfillment and happiness? Am I happy? When will I be happy? When will I be finished?
The story you have been narrating for years seems to me, from what little I know, to do some of this. I don’t know if you will be finished. Artists don’t retire.
Do I enjoy having existential crises? Why am I stuck in my own mind?
There is a warning here. A friend was talking about education addicts who attended a free art school to get their fix. It was a fairly harsh critique of people’s motives around education, or finding answers, but what are the implications if you do enjoy the drama of a constant internal existential crisis? What does that provide? What desire does it fulfill that can’t be exhausted or controlled? Another artist, AK Burns, tells students ‘never justify yourself’. That seems like important advice. People can call you on things, challenge you, but no one has to justify their existence, maybe only some of the conditions of that existence in the world, and even then, so much of that has to do with who is making demands.
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