Skip to content

What Makes Art Honest?

WEBSITE

Throughout history, there has seemed to be an indelible drive in the human race to put forth artistic expressions derived from self and external influence of all kinds. When a proclamation is put forward by an artist through their work, a facet of the piece arises that is crucial but often overlooked: the honesty of the creation. As an artist myself, I have been captivated by this seemingly pivotal feature in art, and how other artists interact with honesty when creating. Seeing this, the question that I have explicated for my senior project is what makes art honest? To answer this, I have interviewed twelve artists in my community regarding what they believe makes art honest. The individuals I have interviewed practice various mediums of art. I performed the interview in a semi-structured format to allow for open-ended discourse. The takeaways from these interviews were snippets of inspirational dialogue, as well as photos of the artist’s work. My end goal was a three-part product. The first was an assemblage of the findings from the interviews into this zine: a proclamation of individual expression through a self-published compilation of artistic mediums. The second product was a personal proclamation of the knowledge I have gathered concerning artistic honesty throughout the project: a musical EP that I have written, edited, and will record. The first release can be found at https://peytonwhalen.bandcamp.com/. The third product is a full script of the interviews performed, which is located on this website. Through the execution of this project, I have hoped to create something inspiring for not only myself, but for any audience lending an ear—something that makes them think critically about honesty not only in art, but in all arenas of life.