On Art & Separation

I have many many thoughts on this subject, so strap in. It’s gonna get cerebral. And long, very long. (Multiple installments to come.)

When I was at school, I remember learning—in a poetry workshop, no less—that we were going to read every poem as though the author was never speaking autobiographically. Even a piece written in first person would be referred to as having a “speaker.” It would be wrong of us to assume that the author himself is the “I” in the poem.

Not only did this give some distance for us to analyze each work more objectively, it also posed an interesting question: How much influence does an author have on their creation after it is set free in the world?

Since then, I have integrated this reading technique. I find it holds much truth, and I just cannot see how the narrative voice of any story, poem, essay, or even a memoir could be assumed to be The Author.

Now, let me clarify here: Of course the work of a writer is written by that person. And of course, if they’re writing an autobiographical story, it is about them. What I’m discussing is a little more nuanced: The voice the author uses when creating a story does not represent their entire being. It is a sliver of who they are, and it has been edited and curated over time.

Consider the notion of identity.

We all have different personas within us. Our minds separate us into different spaces according to the activities we engage in. Think about an argument where you present an opposing view to your own; you enter a slightly different mental playground, to put yourself in the very mind of your “enemy.” Or when you talk to a friend. You probably don’t discuss the same things you would with your parents or spouse, and may even guard a lot of your emotions to seem more acceptable. There are so many other examples, but hopefully you can begin to see what I mean.

When we write, we have to become several different people: the person who knows they’re writing the story, the narrator of that story, every character in that story, then the editor, reader, even publisher. Here we can see the personas very clearly.

Still, there are layers.

Writing itself is not a natural way of communicating; it’s a filter. So not only do we filter our raw thoughts by writing them in a coherent way, we also analyze them as we do that. Writing is practically three degrees removed from the original thought, possibly even four if we consider revising and editing. Anything we write that is truly about ourselves and our lives is never unfiltered. (This raises an interesting question about what makes us us and at what point filtration begins. I will explore this in a different essay.)

This means that the finished product is a mixture of at least six (definitely more) parts of you, the writer. As a reader, we experience a written work very linearly, unless we’re analyzing it critically. So we follow the narrative voice until the end, whereupon conclusions are drawn. Often, our first reaction is to assume that whatever we just read is very personal to the author, especially in specific genres, like nonfiction, poetry, or romance. When heightened emotions or intense relationships are involved, in addition to first person narration, it’s easier to assume authorial experience.

This is a shallow way to consume writing. How much more can we get out of a piece if we look at it through abstracted layers, through personas? We can begin to see a conversation happen between author and narrative voice, between narrative voice and character, between character and plot, all elements that required a slightly different authorial persona to create. I’d argue that superficially reading a piece and stopping, with no return with an analytical eye, is doing the work–and yourself–a great disservice.

It is my proposition that we cannot avoid separating the art from the artist, since time ultimately does this for us. Moreover, I also want to argue that we ought to separate the two, as it gives the art more breadth to live and touch its consumers. The closer art is to its creator, the shorter its leash, and the harder it is for an audience to fully understand and experience it.

In the next installment of this essay, I will begin to formulate this argument by examining visual art. I find it’s an easier analogy to make when discussing artistic personas and why we often need to let go of the original context of a piece and simply experience it purely, rawly.

I don’t want to be an artist who promotes the old ideas surrounding art: That to appreciate it, you must be an academic, studied in the history and culture of whatever it is you’re looking at, and be able to speak with erudite peers on the subject. Art is first and foremost, an experience. Mind, body, spirit. If you want to extend that experience to one of the three, by all means; it can only give you more. There is no one right way to do it. The wrong way is to say that there is.

By separating the art from the artist, we can return to the true intention of art, one that every artist pours into their work and hopes to evoke in their audience—experience. If your first intention is to inform or convert or argue, then I’m inclined to say that you are not producing art. Those things can come later, of course. It is my opinion that the first intention of art is the same no matter the type.

I want to say that I am not arguing for a purist approach to separating the art from the artist. I’m hoping to demonstrate that there is a place for both, and ideally, I think we ought to train ourselves to do both simultaneously. By separating the art from the artist, we have room for it to touch us more completely. By recognizing the source, we get to see the unique branding of artistic intention, something we ought to cherish as artists ourselves.

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Thank you so much for reading! Stay tuned for the next installment. And let me know your thoughts in the comments, if you care to share. 😊