Expose yourself.

Scary but amazing.

There are so many aspects of one’s life that we never talk about. Things that live inside you but that you may never articulate to another human being.

What you think about your death. How the world feels from this particular place. How we should treat each other. What role God has in your life. What we think is beautiful. Our weaknesses and secret dreams.

Things that you have opinions about, you have feelings about, you have dreams about — but that just lie in the basement of your mind in decaying cardboard boxes, gathering dust and silverfish.

Sure, there are those rare moments you bring some of them out.

After a couple drinks with a college roommate, talking to a stranger on an overnight plane trip, or to your spouse when you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep. But in all likelihood, you’ll go to your grave with those thoughts and feelings and opinions still locked behind cobwebs and never shared with the world.

Unless you are an artist.

So many of my favorite artists make work that displays their feelings, their inner angst, their fears. How they feel about human beings, about aging, about the body, about sex, weakness, death, society. The more intense the better.

Basquiat, Crumb, Schiele, van Gogh, Lucien Freud, Neel, Hockney. Knausgård, Dylan Thomas, Patchett, Strout, Bukowski, even Stephen King.

I love these artists because they crack open their chests and skulls and spill out things we recognize in ourselves, things we didn’t know anyone else felt or thought.

Sometimes raw, sometimes enhanced with genius.

Big things and small that may or may not ever come up in polite society.

Way beyond pretty pictures, cool techniques, gripping stories or fancy footwork, they make art that’s worth spending time with because it makes us feel like we are not alone in the universe.

Making heartfelt art doesn’t mean you need to self-flagellate in public, but you do need to be authentic and unafraid.

Art is the opportunity to share yourself. Seize it.

Your pal,

Danny

P.S. I just made a video about an artist who hated his art. I hope you don’t hate it.