Do you know authenticity when you see it?

Do you think you know when someone’s work comes from an authentic place? Or perhaps you are good at spotting when someone’s work is contrived, created only to generate an income?

I think that being authentic is a highly undervalued currency. Authenticity is hard to judge.

But how do you know when someone is being authentic? How do you know when their work is coming from the heart?

In my view, it’s not easy to know. Because even as an artist, sometimes you only know how much you really cared about the work long after you made it.

In my own case I’ve gone to review work I created a year or so ago only to find I’m disappointed in it. I can see that I was just trying too hard. Other times I look at the work and think ‘wow, I was actually tapping into something at that time’.

Wish I could tap into ‘that something’ whenever I wanted, but the truth is - I think genuine creativity is an elusive thing.

You see, I think it’s hard to know when oneself is being authentic, let alone whether someone else is. It is only with some hindsight that we can get clarity what we’ve created.

But ultimately: does it really matter?

If others love the work, then surely that’s all that counts? Surely if the work was highly-contrived, generated to make money, but people still loved it, then it’s good, right?

Well in my view it’s up to the individual. But I think when an artist’s heart isn’t into it, most (but not all) folk pick up on it. Most smell a rat.

That’s where I think authenticity wins. As the saying goes:

you can fool some of the people some of the time.
But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

And I would like to add, with respect to how we feel about the work that we create:

We can fool ourselves some of the time.
But we can’t fool ourselves all of the time.