Great art

“Great art stretches the taste. It doesn’t follow tastes.” – Steve Jobs

Sometimes it’s possible to know that the piece you’re working on, the design you’re creating, whatever – sometimes you know that it will be well-received. Mostly, though, it’s a huge gamble. The most prepared you can be is looking at it with fresh eyes, and thinking that this is something you’d appreciate.

Universal acceptance is almost non-existent. All creatives inherently know this, and yet when those negative reviews, sometimes scathing, come in, it feels like a personal defeat. One negative review can outshine a hundred positive ones.

And there are times when the art comes to early, only to be appreciated later. Look at Van Gogh, whose success during his lifetime was virtually non-existent. A popular anecdote is that he only sold one painting in his lifetime, though it has been revealed that it’s an exaggeration.

But, ultimately, you’re creating for the sake of creating. It may be commercially successful, or it may not. But when you have something that has to be given to the world, the only thing that you really can do is create it.