Keeping Things Coherent
When we start out working as an artist in any sort of art form, we tend to do a lot of different things, especially copy others. Take a look at any famous artist and their early works are often derivative of others, especially the artists they admired. This is natural. We all need to get the fundamentals down and start somewhere. Emulating others is a good place to start. It takes time to find our own path. But once an artist finds that path, they grow into their own thing. Their work takes on another dimension and they acquire their own following. And along that path, they sometimes make abrupt changes that people need time to adjust to. But these changes, if they come from within their artistic vision, are wholly coherent with who and what they are. Two modern musical examples are Björk and David Bowie. During long careers, they have both shifted their musical course, sometimes drastically. Björk has recorded and toured with a vocal choir, brass...