Imagine living the rest of your life in a cave, where no one would ever see your art. Would you be making the art you’re making today? This was a rhetorical question, posed to a small class of us students just months from graduation. The aim of the class was to prepare us for the ‘real world’, transitioning into becoming professional artists. I had little if any ambitions of which at the time, so much of the information just passed in one ear and out the other. But this one question stuck. Even 20 years later I still reflect on it.

 

This cave is symbolic to me. Its a space of autonomy where creativity is free from the external concerns for things such as an audience (or in these days ‘followers’ and ‘likes’), the market or selling anything at all, building a resume, and so on. To varying degrees, I feel in life we all must compromise. With making a living, in our relationships whether its family/personal/work, any and all situations outside the privacy of our solitude. And for me, art is the one place where I can be free. The one space where I can have complete control, without interference if I so choose. Art is subjective and can be anything it’s creator decides it to be. If one decides at all.  And this space of freedom is what I call the cave.