ON THE MEDIUM OF ARTISTIC PRESENCE
- - -
THE ACCEPTANCE OF PERSONA
Every artist expresses persona. For performers, the public face is inside the art. The work of Charlie Chaplin, Billie Holiday, Ana Mendieta, or Jimi Hendrix cannot be separated from the undeniable power of persona.
For artists who send their work into the world, persona may be less apparent. Writers, painters, and composers will have little relationship to an exterior self unless they actively choose to engage it. Such private-minded artists may find the very subject of persona to be taboo, distasteful, and cringeworthy. They might bristle and scoff at the possibility that they, too, have constructed and worn masks for many years.
