100. Letting Everything Out

Out of a desire to be valued by others, we sometimes filter our lives to make ourselves look better than we are. We carefully sweep away anything that might suggest we are flawed or limited, while at the same time drawing attention to the parts of us others will like and enjoy.

We perform this kind of filtering not only for ourselves, but also for the artworks we create. We believe others will judge us harshly if we share a flawed creation. We think they will label us as unskilled or uninformed, or they might tell others our work is unattractive or unrefined. These outcomes are both possible and distressing, so we limit what we share to the best of the best.

But in suppressing our art, we not only project an outward image of creativity and the creative process that is false, we also limit the expression of the very self we want others to appreciate.

The alternative is to let everything out, even our failures. Such a radical act requires great courage. It is to allow the whole self to be expressed, even the parts others might judge to be ugly or boring. It is to see curation as a process of ordering and juxtaposing rather than one of anxious selection and omission. It is to see editing as a process of clarifying and intensifying rather than one of cautious smoothing and erasing.

All of this makes our creations more messy than they otherwise would be. But it is precisely this messiness that has enormous value. By witnessing the mess, our audience is given the opportunity to see the complexity and nuances of a whole human being. This experience helps them become more aware of their own humanity and the humanity of others. By courageously sharing more of ourselves and our art, we not only express ourselves more fully and sincerely, we help others see and understand more, too.