The Messy Middle Deserves to Be Seen

I keep coming back to this quote from one of my favorite writers: 

When I first saw this quote months ago, it immediately resonated with me and stuck with me for days. Lately I've wrestled with thought of whether artists should have to be performative online and be more than people who enjoy making things with their hands. 

Now we have to be content creators, entertainers, and lifestyle bloggers, allowing others to witness our most sacred and intimate practices. It feels at odds with what many of us have been led to believe about sharing creative projects outwardly, especially in the tender moments of the messy middle. 

You meet yourself there. You problem-solve. You study. You get bored. You get frustrated. You harden, you soften. You open up to the possibilities. You leave. You live. You return. Over and over again, all of these moments somehow end up in the work, in their own way. Call it artist style or artist voice, it's essentially what makes the work feel like it came from you. And maybe that’s what makes the messy middle so difficult to share: it’s where the work is becoming, but so is the artist. If the work is allowed to be unfinished, what does that mean for the artist making it? 

Artist first. Content, maybe.

Artists have always shared their work: however, the internet has completely changed what that can look like.

Artists can show their work directly to an audience. Sell without waiting for a gallery. Document their process in real time. Write about their ideas, photograph their studios, make videos, build communities, raise money for projects, and create entire careers around their own creative practices.

There are more ways to make a living as an artist than the generations before us could have imagined. The access we have now is incredible; it also comes with a new expectation:

Show us everything.

Make the art, but also film yourself making it. Photograph the sketch. Film the painting. Talk about the inspiration. Show the studio. Explain the materials. Make the reel. Edit the vlog. Write the caption. Post it to Instagram. Then TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest. Send the email. Update the website.

And somehow, do all of this while continuing to actually create. Even with my own background in writing, digital marketing, and print design, I wouldn't dare call any of this easy.

Making the art, formatting it, photographing it, filming and editing content, updating a website, writing blogs, sending emails, and maintaining four or more social platforms is essentially a small creative agency's worth of work happening inside one person.

It IS a lot.

And it's understandable why artists push back against it. For many artists, making art is intimate. It's physical. It's quiet. It's often something done alone. There's something strange about taking that private, almost alchemical process — taking a pile of supplies and turning it into something that didn't exist before — and suddenly putting a camera in the middle of it.

We're also living through a moment in time when artists have legitimate reasons to protect their work and intellectual property.

Artists shouldn't have to expose every step of their process to prove that their work is real. The answer to AI shouldn't be placing the burden on artists to document themselves working in increasingly detailed ways to establish a digital paper trail. Some things can remain private; some parts of making are sacred, but discretion should be up to the artist.

The art of being seen.

For so long, artists have been told to work in silence. Do the work. Don't talk about it. Let the work speak for itself. There is wisdom in that. The work needs room to exist without being perceived, but believing the only legitimate way to make art is to emerge from the studio once everything is finished can be limiting.

Especially when so much of being an artist today can involve telling your own story. Showing up online doesn't have to mean turning an entire creative practice into content. Being seen doesn't require being constantly on camera.

It can look like a painting. A photograph. A blog post. A studio vlog. A voiceover over footage of your hands. A sentence about why you made what was made. A glimpse of the sketch before the finished piece. A story about what was happening while the work was being formed. There are so many ways to invite people into your world without handing them the keys to it. I've been learning this about my own process, trying new formats, sharing different bits, seeing what feels good to me and resonates with my small corner of the internet.

Being seen is not the same as being exposed.

There can be intention behind what gets shared, what stays private, and what becomes part of the public story of an artist's career. The process doesn't have to become completely public to be meaningful. And it doesn't have to remain completely private to remain sacred.

There can be a middle ground. That's part of what makes this moment so interesting. Because this is the first time in history that so many artists have had this much control over how their careers are built.

Artists can choose the mediums they work in. Build audiences both online and offline. Sell directly to collectors. Publish their own writing. Create their own platforms. Document their careers as they're happening. So many moments in the lives of artists before us were lost simply because there was no easy way to record and share them.

Now we can and how amazing is that? To be able to share more of ourselves and also to be empowered in how we share and connect to others, and to be able to build a path that fits those desires. 

The messy middle deserves to be seen, too.

This is where that original quote keeps bringing me back.

You do not have to be whole to build.

Maybe being seen doesn't have to be something earned once you've arrived. Maybe people can see you while you're still figuring things out. While the painting is unfinished. While the idea is changing. While you're trying something new. While you're questioning whether you're any good at it. While you're still becoming the artist you're trying to become.

There is something powerful about that kind of visibility because it doesn't require perfection. It says: I'm here. I'm making something. I don't have all the answers yet, but I'm making it anyway.

And maybe someone else needs to see that, proof that they aren't the only person figuring it out as they go along. Instead of another perfectly aesthetic studio tour or another step-by-step tutorial.

That's the part of sharing that feels most meaningful. The quirks and tics of a human touch and experience.  Creative work doesn't have to exist solely in service of an algorithm. Every intimate moment of making doesn't have to become content. Artists don't have to expose themselves or document every brushstroke just to keep up.

But artists can be empowered to tell their own stories.

To find the format that feels natural. To show up in ways that feel expansive rather than restrictive. To take ownership of being an artist instead of waiting for someone else to give them permission to be one.

You don't have to wait until you're finished to let someone see you, and you don't have to show everything, either. Maybe the real freedom is getting to decide how you want to be seen.

And for me, that's what this season of making has been teaching me. I can be in progress and still be present. I can protect what's sacred and still share what's meaningful. I can make the work and tell the story. I can be unfinished and still take up space.

I can be seen here, too, in the messy middle, in a more open and honest space. Making. Exploring. Seeing where things go. You can join me on this exploration over on my YouTube channel for my art studio here: https://www.youtube.com/@brisimpsonart