The Vulnerability in Authenticity

I remember the overwhelming tidal wave of vulnerability that washed over me just before premiering my latest body of work. While many artists prefer to not talk about this aspect of creativity, I am a rebel artist exploring art-making, authenticity, and creativity. 

In talking about the tough stuff, we can open up new dimensions. We can create art that matters.

Exploring Art Expression

My new series represented nothing less than the complete artistic embodiment of my unvarnished interior life. No filters, no crowd-pleasing contortions, no pristine technical mastery. I tossed all that out. What was left was just the rawest and most naked revelations.  Honest expressions, pried directly from the deepest recesses of my psyche.

For years, I had been lauded as a skilled artisan. I consistently created pleasing art. I focused all my attention on meticulously crafting brilliant yet sanitized work. 

Looking back, I realized I’d opted for commercial appeal over intimate authenticity. 

Listening To An Insistent Urge

How did I know? I felt like something was missing. 

My polished pieces resonated with widespread audiences and earned critical acclaim, but I always felt incomplete. And while I heard the compliments, I often also heard my inner voice. I felt something else wanted to come to life. I didn’t want to keep doing the same thing. 

I knew I had to make a change. I couldn’t sustain making soulless statements that projected an aspirational facade.

Somehow, there was this insistent urge that I couldn’t ignore. I needed to communicate authentic expression. I needed to find and speak from my singular voice.

Recognizing: It’s Now or Never

No easy way to put this. But I had a “now or never” experience. You could call it a profound spiritual awakening.

I woke up to a sense of urgency to speak the truth in my art. I connected on a visceral level to my purpose. My priorities did an about-face.

I could no longer proceed without shedding that commercialized exterior. I felt that creating art for purely material success was a form of poison. It would only bring about an internal sickness leading ultimately to spiritual death. 

A place of no return. 

So I fearlessly let my vulnerabilities and insecurities pour onto the canvas. I chiseled out messages that reflected my awakening. And I left decorative entertainment in the dust.

For the first time, I pursued my artistic drive with nothing omitted, redacted, or sanitized. Just the stark naked reality of who I am. Yes, that’s all me. A troubled, flawed, yet transcendentally hopeful human being.

Entering The Iron Net of Doubt

Yet something came along at the same time. With my impassioned commitment to authenticity over sterile marketability, I felt fear wash over me. Like an invisible iron net, doubt poured in in waves.

Waves of destabilizing terror and self-doubt. 

"Am I oversharing disturbing shadows nobody else will relate to?”

“Did I overstep?”

“Should I keep this sensitive intimacy private?”

“Am I just giving in to the urge to purge?”

“Am I getting lost in my mental fun-house without considering universal resonance?”

Sometimes I waxed philosophical. Other times, purely practical. 

These insecurities plagued every brushstroke, every mold cast, every guttural improvisational rumination on stage. 

But I didn’t give in. Instead, I moved on. Yes, I stumbled sometimes. Yes, I wobbled and almost fell. Yes, I fell. And got back up.

I remain undeterred. I kept going and I intend to keep going. Here are a couple of things I learned about surfing those seemingly unlimited waves. 

Surfing The Waves

Why surfing? You have to stay agile, balanced, and constantly alert. The same is true in creating genuine expressions. 

After my moment of truth, I knew I had to listen from the inside. I knew I had to. A matter of life or death. Any temptation to hedge my authenticity and make my art more palatable would neuter my purpose. It would reduce my creative life force into utterly ineffective drivel.

Enjoying popular success is certainly not a problem. It isn’t inherently corrosive to artistry. Yet, some seductive issues come with popularity.

Success brings notoriety. Success brings money. It’s magnetically appealing. This can hook you with trance-like persuasion. The problem is not new. The relentless pressure to contort your expression to match commercialized refinement is a force artists have struggled with for centuries.

As artists, we can migrate into people-pleasing without even noticing. A new direction is appealing. Why? Because it satisfies your benefactor. If the new direction sells faster and commands more money, it’s easy to keep going in that direction. This is evident from artists of the past and present. It’s a siren song that few can resist. 

Pressures come from different corners. Critics demand conformity to traditional categories. Corporations require “best practices.” Academia awards prizes according to “creative standards.” Social media applies pressure to produce shiny perfection. It all comes together in a rolling tide.

The implicit demand results in a false belief: “To survive as an artist, you must steadily sell off crucial shards of your individuality.” 

Reaching A Tipping Point

Once you start down that slippery slope, it doesn’t get easier. It gets harder. If you hide your artistic soul in favor of price tags, you eventually reach a “Point of No Return.”

What does that look like? 

It’s the moment when you don’t recognize yourself. You don’t recognize your art.

All the compromises have multiplied into a state of utter self-betrayal. You’re pumping out anodyne “product." You’re focusing on timelines and production schedules. You’re adapting to fit in. You’re only thinking about making more of what is selling. 

Hopefully, this pays the bills. But at a huge cost. 

It creates starvation in a different dimension. 

You wake up only to find you are alone. Utterly severed from yourself. You don’t feel anything. You are separate from your authentic expression. Far too many gifted artists wander along to this point. Until jolting awake. 

Upon waking, you are shocked. You’ve mutated into a shadow of your former creative spirits. You only know how to do what is popular. Rinse-and-repeat. How did you get here? By sacrificing your true expression to please an audience - real or imagined.

For those devoted to art as an infinite journey of self-discovery, this is when you need the equivalent of artistic resuscitation. 

It doesn’t have to go like this. 

Fortunately, some artists show us how they lived, created, and persisted in speaking their truth.

Vanguard Voices of Truth

You are not alone. We are in the presence of genius artists who share the same passion to speak soul-bearing truth. Their art speaks of their vulnerability and provides us with transcendent inspiration.

As we look around and look back, we see the tribe. A tribe of independent artists who surgically separate us from mediocre mush. Authentic, soul-bearing revelations. Persistent expressions of vulnerability. These brilliant geniuses light the way. Their truth sets us free. Their passion inspires us to go the distance. 

History's vanguard voices are consistent in transmitting their naked subjective experiences. Romantic Poets like Wordsworth. Beats like Burroughs. Folk/Rock enlighteners like Dylan or Cohen. Each one poured out intimately raw truth into mainstream consciousness. Their depictions of esoteric pain transformed people. Hearing the sounds ignited a mass awakening.

Listen. You will hear it. Each one of these artists speaks directly to your heart. Their passionate expression of unvarnished pain ignites a pathway to authentic feeling. Like a shamanic incantation, each expresses unvarnished truth - direct from the source.

Meeting Transcendent Trailblazers

Let’s go a little deeper into the spiritual x-factor that separates these transcendent trailblazers from those who play it safe. From literature to painting to experimental performance, each artist shares from the depth of their soul. 

Frida Kahlo's expressions of pain were radical and confrontational. She fearlessly portrayed naked vulnerability in her oil paintings so much that viewers felt paralyzed to the core. Louise Bourgeois's sculptures depicted psychosexual turmoil. Giving voice to her autobiographical experience radiated timeless tumult. A stormy totem radiating out with uncanny familiarity. 

Non-conformist expressions are not limited to two-dimensional art. Edward Beckett dives deep into human experience. With surgical accuracy, he reveals undeniable connections of emotions, time, and symbols. We are transported. We recognize interconnectedness and emerge forever changed. Nothing feels or looks the same as it did before. 

Few artists illuminate the unseen and embrace authenticity's transformative power better than David Bowie. In his final years, Bowie described how his inexhaustible representations came from demolishing creative barriers. His steadfast commitment stemmed from an unwavering vow to "turn myself inside out.”

Bowie weaponized unflinching authenticity as his core delivery vector. His brilliance brought together avatar manifestations of post-modern identity. His expressions of truth course directly into our circulatory systems. From Ziggy Stardust to Thin White Duke, Bowie retains a raw, naked essence. In esoteric tracts and emotional scrawls, you feel the essence of being alive. 

This is the power of authentically vulnerable art. Break all the rules. Join in.

Exploring Authentic Vulnerability

Fearless artists speak, sing, dance, and paint in wild colors or uncensored poetry. Without giving in to self-imposed walls. Without bowing to the pressures of commercialism. And to what end? To share what we all have in common. Basic human experience.

Speaking across the centuries, Shakespeare urged viewers, "to see themselves as they are." 

Shakespeare’s work resonates with core human emotions. He reveals emotions, exposes feelings, and captures the complexity of human relations in ways that are entirely relevant to contemporary life. 

His brilliance lies in intentionally provoking uncomfortable responses. We watch the actors on stage and at the same time, are moved to examine our feelings. We are transfixed and humbled out of our egoistic comfort bubble. How does he do it? How are his historical works written as if written today? 

Breaking Free From Limits

Transcendent artwork shares one unifying factor. It is full, total, and unrelenting. It goes beyond nicety. It races past politeness. It shows disquieting nuances and stained contradictions of human experience. 

Art is unique in its totality. It is a pursuit that carves out one’s soul. It demands to be said and expressed. 

Now here is the thing that people don’t tell you about truth-telling. 

Sharing your vulnerable authenticity is not instant. It isn’t easy. It takes practice, dedication, and experimentation. It may be one of the toughest skills to learn. Yet, no other human endeavor demands totality with such exacting persistence as Art. 

As artists, we cannot waver. We must embrace this persistence to question our assumptions, blast through limitations, and keep creating. We must demolish inner limitations to find pure meaning and purpose. Art is made by boundary-demolishing creative torch-bearers. It is up to us to be courageous. To give voice to our vulnerable authenticity.  

Let your art and your story be unique. Listen to your heart. Accept the artist’s power to speak your truth and explore your vulnerability. Create art that ignites this desire in viewers, collectors, and critics. 

Now…what is your next move?