Artistic Integrity

What is artistic integrity? And does it matter in our current age? In the age of Instagram and youtube are we kidding ourselves in believing that we can have integrity-let alone artistic integrity?

Selling out. It’s a word much used, by those that have decided to go down the commercial path. The past week again and again the lesson seems to be the ideology of integrity. It has come up in class, and it’s also come up in a show that fell through the cracks. I could sit here and point fingers, but ultimately it was — as the woke kids say out of alignment. Now what does that even mean, you might ask.

First we have to ask the important question: what does it mean to be an artist. Well, usually it entails some kind of skill, a talent if you will. Whether it is as a performer, or as a painter, or even a gasp- instagram photographer. Then a process comes in. This is the tricky part, for the myriad number artists- there are just as many processes of creation. For some it starts with their breakfast, or when they step into their studio- or as Twyla Tharpe’s book ponders once you put on your shoes to go to the gym.

SIDEBAR: I have been obsessed with Twyla Tharpe’s Creative Habit, and Anna Deveare Smith’s Letter’s to An Artist. I bought it on audible some time ago and blast it on repeat- it feels like I have two of the best mentors in my ear, every time a new nugget…