Yet art was no stranger to me. As a boy, I put crayon to every flat surface I came across. My identity was rudimentary, encompassing only the few things I had the tools to understand. I imagine my parents would have had to drag me out of the Toaster Strudel and Hotwheels Museum of Modern Art. The luminaries of art history - that my Mother hoped would seep into my mind via osmosis - were not yet speaking to me. I think, for the especially unwilling, this is always the case: mind unable to meet art. 

A mutual exchange occurs when someone is meaningfully impacted by art. However, that symbiosis demands honest introspection from both the artist and the beholder. Art is a mirror - positioned across from ourselves. The better we see ourselves, the better we see art. 

As an audience, our tastes and identities develop concurrently. As an unbaked child, we love our puppy so we love paintings of puppies. In the clutches of adolescence, we stop liking our parent's music and start blasting American Idiot on a Sony Walkmam behind slammed doors. The more we work to recognize our own identity within ourselves, the better we can identify the pieces of ourselves out in the world to connect to. 

Likewise, as an artist unearths their own identity, it more easily imbues their creation.

…

Before my mind arrived at this painting, I struggled to select the subject, pose, mood, colors. As I mulled, my head rang with the headlines dispensed by my digital sieve. After all, they are so loud. While the Banksy’s of the world bring their human perspective to the doorstep of politics, my mind burrows inward.

And when I look, I see myself drinking a Sycamore beer at the end of the day. And if I have one, I might have eleven. Because my hamster wheel runs when I can barely walk.

Through a mutual endeavor within, without dialogue or physical presence, we trade the most intimate parts of ourselves. And in that space, between artist and viewer, we are safe to wander out a little further into the uncharted.