I also paint, draw and I'm into film and photography as well, and the same thing applies to all of them. You're presenting this material to the general public and hoping that they're going to 'get' what you're doing. Some don't, some do.
For me, it started as a child with one of those little wooden jigsaw maps of the U.S., where's there's crocodiles on Florida and apples on Washington state. That was my very first map.

