My favourite cuisine is Japanese. I like simple clothing – mainly jeans, t-shirts, and cardigans. I don’t like suits. I have a cat, but I prefer dogs. I like winter, but I prefer summer.
No one ever asks me how I came to these conclusions, or why. When it comes to food, clothes, or pets, no one thinks too hard about it. We like what we like, and don’t like what we don’t like. But when it comes to art, one of the most-asked questions seems to be, “how do I find my style?”
We seem to fret a lot about our art style. Will my style get me noticed? What styles are publishers looking for? Should I stick with one style or do I show all the styles I can do? And sure, while ‘style’ can be engineered, what can’t be is the authenticity behind it.
I can attend a job interview for a corporate accounting firm. I can wear the expensive suit, the nice shoes, the stylish tie. I can gel my hair, sport a leather briefcase, I can even open Microsft Excel and show some examples of how I crunch numbers. I can do all of this, maybe once, or twice, or even 20 times, but I can’t keep it up. If I get the job at the accounting firm, I have to pretend that suits and briefcases are my style, every day. Not only is that expensive (gee, think of the money I’d have to spend on suits), but it’s emotionally draining. It’s emotionally draining because, quite simply, it’s inauthentic.
Just ‘be authentic’
Whenever I hear advice that reads, ‘be authentic’, I cringe. Authenticity is precisely the opposite of curation and intention. It requires so little effort, but it’s also so difficult to attain. Why? Because authenticity requires courage.
Authenticity takes the courage to look inwards, to think about ourselves, without the influence of others, and determine what we genuinely like and dislike. To realise and be comfortable with the fact that we won’t fit in everywhere, but that there is a place for us, somewhere. It’s only until we unlock this within ourselves that the question of ‘what should my style be’ disappears because it’s replaced with a statement: this is who I am, this is the work that I make. If it’s the sort of work that a publisher decides to duplicate 10,000 times in a book, then that’s a bonus. If not, at least you’re making work that matters to you. After all, that’s what it means to be a true artist, and if it’s truly authentic, it’ll be one of the most rewarding ways you can spend some time.