Every once in a while there is a quote from Tennessee Williams, I believe it is, that appears on the side of my blog while I’m writing and editing entries that says something along the lines of “If a person is genuine, then there will be no difference between the artist and his work.” If we are being sincere and authentic, our works will speak about us. They may speak good things, or bad things, or (more commonly) a mixture been the two, but if we are really honest with ourselves and others, our works will speak about ourselves, even if it does not always speak in a straightforward way.

As a writer (or an artist in general) who is deeply personal and expressive about art, there is generally a difficult balance one wants to maintain. Many artists (myself included) use their art as an emotional vent, as a way to deal with those thoughts and feelings that are serious and perhaps even a bit dangerous. One wants to be honest without throwing someone under the bus, though definitions of that vary. To give one example of this, the singer Taylor Swift, on her third album “Speak Now,” wrote a song called Dear John. Since she had been in a brief and disastrous relationship with John Mayer, it was widely assumed that the song was about him, and he felt humiliated by it, despite the fact that he has been in a great many relationships himself. Perhaps he is used to being the only songwriter in a relationship and feels upset when someone else tells their side of the story, or perhaps her attempts not to throw him under the bus were not successful enough. Either could be true.

The risk and the danger of using art as a vent for experiences and feelings is that once words or an image is formed, it can be twisted depending on the viewer or reader or listener. As singer-songwriter Anna Nalick said in her hit “Breathe (2 AM):” “And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd, ’cause these words are my diary screaming out loud, and I know that you’ll use them however you want to.” That is the danger with giving voice to one’s experiences, one’s thoughts, and one’s feelings. Once we commit them to a form, they can be twisted and distorted. At best it comes out like a remix, which may not be a bad thing at all. At worst, what is said or done is twisted by someone’s conceptions and interpretations beyond all recognition, so that it can be taken to mean something far worse or far more sinister than was even remotely conceived by the creator.

Few creators know that better than our Creator Himself, who inspired one Paul of Tarsus to write about how creation spoke about the attributes of the creator and how our view of the creation has been distorted by our sin, in Romans 1:18-23: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man–and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.”

Here we see the origin of the corruption that threatens all creators. Once we create, others interpret what we create in ways that are not always honest or genuine, however honest or genuine we may be. If the perfect and noble creations of our heavenly father cannot remain uncorrupted because of the sinfulness we all share in as mortal and corrupt mankind, how can the lesser creations we make escape such corruption themselves? If our works are at least partly corrupt to begin with, they will be made more corrupt by those who are more corrupt than we are. If our institutions and constitutions are castles made out of sand, will they not be deformed and twisted even more than the far more noble ways of God that have been twisted and made unrecognizable by the hostility of mankind to the ethical demands of God? One wishes it could be another way, but all creators must face the facts that our creations tell on us, and that they can be corrupted and twisted by others. And neither fate is all that pleasant sometimes.