I was talking with a photographer friend about the purpose of art, the need to connect, and other creative matters. My friend said that once she had developed an image to her satisfaction, the work was complete. She didn't need for anyone else to see it.
I, on the other hand, have a hard time writing anything that I can't imagine an audience for. Readers complete the arc and make my story whole. Without that, it's almost too lonely for me to think about: a living being locked down in a dark room, unable to walk and breathe and feel the weather.
This got me to thinking about the many lives of art.
The first life is the making, which is a dance, or, more likely, a wrestling match with your creation. Characters form. They wriggle and squawk in your hands. They rebel by dropping dead altogether. You overwork the piece and smother it. You take out a chapter, snip a branch, remove a layer of paint so it can take a breath.
You start with something in mind, and end with a creation that has a mind of its own.
The photograph glows, the story comes alive, the ikebana dances. The next lives of some art forms require players. To be experienced by anyone else, the composition needs musicians and dancers.
Then, your art walks out the door and into its future incarnations.
The painting hangs on the wall where it is viewed on different days, in different lights, in different moods. The dance is performed. There are readings in bookstores. Screenplays are acted out. The audience mixes your art with their stories.
This happens:
Your art gets ignored, gets noticed.
Gets misinterpreted, misused, misunderstood, gets popular, gets forgotten.
Gets ruined.
Gets ground into pablum for the masses.
Gets banned.
Gets outdated.
Gets rediscovered.
New tendrils sprout:
Fan fiction.
Riffing.
Improvisation.
One work is reborn into a thousand new lives.