the first audience

The artist, uniquely positioned as a new artwork’s inaugural witness, stands as its first and perhaps most intimate audience. This initial encounter is not merely about completion but about bearing witness to the work’s emergence into the world—a solitary act of reception before the artwork is interpreted by others.

It is a familiar experience for artists to feel a wave of dissatisfaction settling in once the cathartic relief of finishing a piece dissipates. However, to form quick assessments of a new work’s value is to undermine the depth and complexity embedded within the creative process. Art demands patience and, just as any viewer might, the artist must also allow themselves to be unsettled, even confronted, by what they have created. An artist perpetually pleased with their output signals a resistance to creative rigor; true artistic practice entails discomfort and challenge.

Only with the passage of time and the gradual loosening of personal attachment can the artist begin to perceive the work as if it belonged to someone else. This distancing effect is essential, enabling the artist to approach the work with an objective eye, free from the immediacy of its creation and the projections of their own intent. In this way, the work gains a degree of autonomy, able to exist and be valued on its own terms.

This is the moment, if ever there is one, to evaluate the work’s merit—if, indeed, that is the artist’s responsibility at all. For, in the end, perhaps it is not their task to judge, but merely to bring forth.

Everything At Once #3 by Vincent Driscoll

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