also, i have some thoughts on meaning:

there have been some neat tumblr posts recently about meaning. i also have Opinions about meaning specifically in reference to contemporary art. ive been trying to reconcile these.

basically: people can find meaning in work you did not intend to have meaning, people can find different meaning than what you intended, you can put meaning in without realising it (and i think this is somewhat unavoidable- you don’t create work in a vacuum, you are influenced by the culture around you whether you like it or not)

but i do still kind of reject the idea that work has to have meaning to be valuable. i think you should be able to create something for no other reason than it looks nice, and that should be it. 

i also think that if the main appeal of your work is its meaning, and that meaning is not accessible to the majority of people, your work is not very good. even if the people who do understand your work think it’s great, if you’re trying to say something and most people can’t understand it, you’ve failed. so much of contemporary art is like this, imo.