Some thoughts on the experience of art

I like this time of year; it's nice to have the free headspace to read novels again.
I've been thinking lately that I find books more accessible than art at times. I can read a book in the comfort of my own home (so often I end up missing exhibitions because it becomes 'too hard' to get to the gallery space).

I'm trying to be creative in my studio practice at the moment and not just focus on one thing. It's a bit of a shift from the periods of extreme focus that I have worked in for much of this year. Personally, I find that I have the best ideas when I don't have deadlines. I strive to be self-disciplined amongst my 'free-time' and I am quite good at this; I am happiest when I am my own boss. It feels like there are lots of possibilities on the horizon and I am happy to be quietly working away and building myself some grounding before I embark on the next series of hurdles.

I always feel like I should be doing more though.
Whatever I do is never enough.
I suppose that is good in that it makes me feel like I need to keep working and aim higher. But then I wonder how does one ever really judge their own creation?
Something that concerns me about going back to art school is the intense discussion of my work and other people's work. I have never felt confident at these sorts of verbal discussions; words become slippery and I don't know what I am meant to say or what I want to say.
I usually base my 'judgement' of a work on my personal experience of it. Does it make me feel something? Can I see/appreciate the work that has gone into it (physically or conceptually)? Does it have a sense of honesty to it? These are the most important elements of art to me and I find it hard to discuss work that doesn't respond to these questions.
I've quite often gone to an exhibition and thought "I feel nothing".
It is the worst response you can have to art.
I feel guilty that I have missed what the artist is trying to convey. I feel dumb that I have missed an obvious point. I wonder if I missed that week's lecture at art school...I constantly blame my feelings of 'nothing' on myself. And I reflect that if I, someone who has studied art at tertiary level and labels themself an artist, feels this way, then how do other people outside of the art world feel?
I want to make work that is honest to myself, a form for my ideas, created in my own language. I hope that it will speak to a range of people on different levels, not just a select few.