I don't know when I started believing that my art was meaningless. When I started doing it because it was my job, when I started doing it for the accreditation, for the promise of returns. Commercial, corporate sell-out. And worst of all, when I started thinking that it didn't matter. It - the voice behind it, the stories, emotions, reasons. Because it wasn't good enough if it wasn't good enough for them. And what good is the artist to them when all they need the art to do is to be marketable. What good comes from presenting your heart on a platter in the form of colours and hues, and ink and stains, when it's 'not what they're looking for'.
The answer is simple, as I've only recently discovered - it does ALL the good. Everything matters. Your art matters and my art matters, even if they don't see it, even if they don't feel it. It matters when you're young and you're devastated, and the emotions keep coming but you can't put the words to them because how can you explain something that's so immense, that overwhelms your mental lexicon and petrifies your very inner soul. It matters when you think you're in love because it's far more complicated than you know and than you can handle and when you've told everyone you thought could help but when you realise that this is a demon you need to take care of on your own. It matters. It matters to me, even though I don't know you, and it could matter to someone else. Everyone is different yet exactly the same. We all go through the same things and we want to know we're not alone. So your art matters. It matters.
So dance, if that's you. Sing, if you need to. Draw and paint, sketch and write. Cry, act, slam it down through poetry. Skate, run, twirl, fling. If that's your art, do it. Whatever your art is, do it because it's your art and it matters.
Even if to nobody else, your art should matter to you. At the very least, your art should matter to you. And don't you go about forgetting that, young artist.
Don't you forget that.
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