I'm going to tell you a story and it does relate to your art, so I hope you'll stay with me.

Once upon a time, a young, famous pop star met a young, charismatic musician at a glittering awards show. 

The attraction was instant, deep, and mutual. It was also doomed. She was on a determined and focused rocket ship to mega-stardom while he didn't even want to be famous (oh and he had a heroin problem).

Over the next ten years, these two romantics stayed in touch - sometimes physically but mostly through their music. They timing was never right, but they kept writing songs about each other; songs that were yearning, passionate, and complex. They sent messages to each other time and time again from 2014 to 2022.

And then, in 2023 the stars finally aligned. He was off drugs and they were both free at the same time. They came together very publicly ... only for it all to fall apart within a few weeks,

Our pop star proceeded to write am entire double album about their ill-fated love. In the songs, she detailed very specific things about their relationship, leaving no doubt who she was writing about. She also described her experience of being so famous that her fans feel they can intrude on her life and ruin it. In one song, she describes having to go up on stage and sing and dance while nursing a broken heart.

Now let's be frank. I've never been in love with a tattooed rock star and I've never had a song written about me. These songs are incredibly removed from the life I live here in the Yorkshire Dales. And yet I feel every lyric as if it was about my life.

Perhaps you've guessed that the artist is Taylor Swift. Perhaps you know that her muse was Matty Healy, of The 1975. By any standard, Tortured Poets is the most successful album of all time, proving once and for all that specificity is universal. The more personal an artwork is, the more it will connect on a universal level.

Taylor's true love has tattoos, he smokes cigarettes, he likes typewriters and chocolate and drugs. But as she tells us these specific details, she also weaves a narrative of lost love and we have all had that.

Likewise, when she writes about being a global megastar having to go on stage and perform to 80,000 people with a broken heart, she allows us to celebrate ourselves for the time we showed up at work even though we were devastated.

And this is what struck me most when listening to this album.  My instinct was to think: "I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. I wouldn't let him know I cared." 

But just imagine if Taylor had thought that way. Those who love her music wouldn't have "loml" or "The Black Dog" or "I Can Do it With a Broken Heart" or "Down Bad" or "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived." And we wouldn't have that experience of feeling seen.

In hiding her true self from us, she would have made our lives a little more lonely. Art helps us connect with hidden parts of ourselves. Sometimes it holds up a mirror, sometimes it just gives us a big hug.

I've thought a lot about this over the last few weeks. I want to make raw, honest, authentic paintings that truly express something personal, and yet where am I protecting myself by not speaking the truth? Or maybe by not admitting truths to myself?

I don't know yet, but as artists, I think we really need to mine our inner depths if we want our art to mean something. Because when we really know ourselves and can express our honest truth, even if it seems weird or unacceptable or just odd ... when we can do that, we will make art that no-one else could have made. We will make art that makes other people feel a little bit more seen and a little bit less alone.

Now that's worth doing.

Oh and if you want to see a couple of those longing, romantic songs, here are some links