Break Out Of The Artist's Shell

Don't break me from my shell.
Here I stay quite warm.
Protected from the world's contempt,
safe from all its harm.
  
Away from curious eyes of those
who whisper, poke, and prod.
I can't hear what they say of me
inside these guarded walls.
   
Safety here I have now,
and comfort I have found,
invisible to the hurried world;
they barely hear my sound.
   
Don't break me from my shell,
they will judge and analyze.
I want to live my role right here,
in stillness, no spotlight. ~

Yes, this poem is about the yellow centipede you see in the bottom of the above photo,
but it is also about me.

I have a tendency to hide my work. And myself.
I'll spend hours composing and learning songs---in the solitude of my own home.
I'll write poems and prose then post them here---expecting very few people
in the vast internet world to stumble upon them.
I'll tinker with my bass guitar---with absolutely no thoughts of ever
playing it anywhere else.

Like that centipede, I have a comfortable shell.
I struggle when it is removed from me.

I sometimes question why I hide and struggle?
My need for approval has diminished enough so that others' validation
is not my main concern.
But keeping your art at home has such a sense of safety and privacy, like a treasured diary.
In other people's hands, they make it what they want to:
they can misinterpret it, try to analyze it, grade it.
Even more so, they might make jugdment calls about the work's creator.

I think that is the big fear which sends me searching for my shell:
That I will be misunderstood.

Aren't artists usually misunderstood?
"She's the one always writing about that same old topic." 
"That's the girl whose poems never rhyme." 
"He's the guy whose pictures look like finger-painting done by a child."

But despite critics who feel qualified to assess works, art has no right or wrong.
No set rules exist on how to correctly express what you feel inside
that needs to come out.
Art is not meant to be graded.

That is my liberation. I should read that sentence everyday:
Art is not meant to be graded.

Maybe the work is meant for you---
for you to cathartically draw, paint, write, or sing away
whatever needs to be released from your soul.

Maybe the work is meant for you and God---a form of worship,
an act of praise and thanksgiving, or an expression of questions
and cries that only He will understand.

Or maybe it is meant for the people---
the people who will see, read, or hear what you have to offer.
Perhaps most of them will lower their eyebrows in puzzlement and comment,
"I don't get it."
Chances are that someone will shake his head and remark,
"I don't like that song/book/painting."
But maybe one person will softly smile and whisper,
"Yes. That reminds me exactly of my circumstances. I needed that."

To really let ourselves burst out of our shell,
maybe we should alter whom we think the art is for:
Not for the masses. We don't need hundreds of fans screaming our names.
Not for the critics. If they don't feel our work is meant for them,
that excludes them from the equation.

Maybe it is for that one person who pauses and nods,
amid the others who walk on by and shake their heads.
Maybe it is for God himself, who desires us to worship him
with every gift he has poured inside us.
Maybe it is just for ourselves, our own expression, release, and sanity,
our own stories, our own enjoyment.

And that is enough.