A Wink

"This is how a creative human works. Collecting, connecting,

 sharing.”- Amanda Palmer, The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned 

to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

I finally picked up Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking last night. It's been next to my bed since it was released. Waiting to be cracked open and devoured, like many of my other books. I am about 100 pages in and am pleasantly surprised at how much I like the book and Amanda Fucking Palmer (her nickname.) I picked it up first thing this morning before I got out of bed and have picked it up twice since, reading, devouring, nodding my head. 

So much of what we're after as human beings is connection. Yet, we're often told to suck it up and figure out a way to do it ourselves. We're told to be wary of strangers and to keep things to ourselves. I know that as an artist what I make is extremely personal yet at the same time, I'm not the only one who feels, thinks and acts in the way that I do. That if we strip away labels and expectations that we're all basically looking for the same thing, connection. 

Every journal page I make is about connecting, with myself and the world around me. So much of my work is solitary but when I share it, it opens hearts and doors. To me, that's the most important thing about being an artist, getting that little glimmer of recognition in the eye of another person, that feeling of "You are not alone." We're never truly alone and art is a way of reaching out and trying to make us understand that. Art is a way of not only making sense of ourselves but of the world around us and each other. Art is a nod of solidarity, a nod of recognition, a wink.