Hopefully a relatable ramble.

to relate: to bring into or establish connection

In the art world the "relatability" of work tends to deal with how the miscellaneous art connects to the viewer, how much it is made tangible to them due to their own life experience. Based on this idea, when I look at work I can immediately decide if it deserves my connection. If I can't "relate", it is outside my interest base and I am given an allowance to dismiss its validity.For some reason this way of thinking doesn't sound so great anymore.

I've been banging my head into this brick wall lately, asking myself over and over if my work is relatable or as some verbal magicians might call it "accessible". Thinking myself sick, speculating on what to change, how to change it and what to do with this information. I go over and over my own life and think it is not so different then the majority, at least not at it's basics... is it possible that this truth has yet to translate into what I'm making, or is not wanting to connect just an underdeveloped reaction.

I have a serious confession...I do this all the damn time. I write something off if I can't find myself in it. Which is why I fight it, because along with this compulsion to instantly connect and be engaged comes another desire; to find a connection that I believe is always there...hiding, often in plain sight. If I ever loose my thirst for wanting to understand another persons perspective I shouldn't be allowed to talk about Art. If I become unable to boil down specifics into the meat of the experience I don't deserve to see what you are making.

This isn't to say to hell with all the other things that go hand in hand with art, this is only one facet of interacting with whatever you may be looking at. But there is no doubting that it is a big one. This is especially hard for me to take a side on, I want to relate... but if I don't I should take new information away from it. I don't think one or the other is better... I think they need each other, they fulfill this side of us that is curious to a flaw, and they remind us of our humanity.

Sometimes by being "unrelatable" we can draw attention to the shared experience, the ones without faces or names, the ones that float into black spaces, the ones we can't put our fingers on. We are forced to find commonality...or we aren't and we miss out on wrapping our heads around something new.

xoxo,
Charlie