Finding it hard to make art? Same.
We can be reinvigorated by remembering why we make art.
I’m not sleeping well. Emails go unanswered. And painting? That is the most difficult activity of all. I’ve been nearly stunned into creative atrophy by the news.
Remedios Varo, Insomnio I (Insomnia I)
The cruelty and terror I am witnessing at the hands of my own government requires an ability to disassociate that I had in my teens but had thought I had long ago outgrown. It turns out that it was just lying dormant.
And my painting practice requires a certain level of lucidity, an un-cloudy brain and a focused energy, all things that can be difficult to attain in times of an aggressively shifting, and totally shifty, world order.
Edvard Munch, Melancholy
Let’s ignore for now the debate about whether or not art even matters in times like this. (It does.) Let’s not explore whether making art is a self-indulgent or totally pointless act in this dumpster fire era. (It’s not). We are going to assume that Gerhard Richter was correct when he said “Art is the highest form of hope” and it is therefore not only not pointless in times like these, it is essential.
We are instead going to focus on how people with hearts and souls can be creative in this world. That’s you that I’m talking to you. You, over there, with the heart and the soul.
Detail from Georges Seurat, 'The Rainbow: Study for 'Bathers at Asnières'', 1883
Can you make art right now?
Jan Asselijn - The Threatened Swan
If you can’t, let’s both remind ourselves of the many reasons why we paint (or quilt or bake or make jewelry…) and why we must continue.
Making art makes you feel better.
It is so difficult to make art when you are feeling bad, whether that feeling is because of world affairs or a breakup. But those are the times that we should be making art because making art can reanimate us and get rid of the sensation that our soul is a bowl of overnight oats.
Of course, the obvious Catch-22 is that when I am feeling bad I don’t usually feel like making art. But I cannot tell you how many times somebody has come into painting class quiet and obviously distressed, only to tell me on their way out of the class two hours later that they are so grateful that they came because they felt so much better.
And it isn’t just your spirit that art can help, study after study proves that making art can make you physically healthier as well.
You make art because it is your job.
In the words of Taylor Swift (the queen of turning bad feelings into iconic artworks) you have to “shake it off” and get to work. I am an artist. I exist to bare witness and report back. Engaging with the world and then making art about that experience is basically my job description. I might be reporting back about something personal like a marital fight or a romantic urge, or I might be reporting back about climate change or attacks on democracy. Big or small, I am decoding and transcribing this big world.
You are also an artist, I don’t care if you support your art with a full-time day job like I have always had to do, and you make your art late at night after work or before your kids wake up. Making art is still your job. And while we don’t always want to do our job, we have to clock in. So make yourself sit down at the computer to write a few pages or get out that soup pot and invent a new chicken noodle. It’s your job. Get to work.
There is too much at stake if you stop.
I paint for mental health reasons; nothing lessens my anxiety as much as a few hours at the easel. I paint to tell a story. I paint to make people feel things. But I especially paint to better engage with the world through more focused looking and thinking.
Art helps me appreciate shadows and colors and clouds and leaves. And what if that appreciation of the natural world helps the viewer of my art appreciate it all more, too? And what if that appreciation in the viewer leads to positive action? I’m not expecting anything I paint to drive somebody to abandon their life to become a tree-sitter, but maybe if millions of us are creating small acts of positive engagement through art we can become an invasive species, growing and spreading, unstoppable.
Your art is a vehicle for empathy and reflection in an unthoughtful and tech-obsessed world.
Do you know what the difference between me and ChatGPT is? I am capable of reflection that is born out of empathy. Yes, all of you AI lovers on here, I know that they are training AI to be capable of reflection, but that reflection will be a programmed one, not one born of human empathy and nobody will ever convince me that a non-human is capable of true empathy. (And seriously, stay out of my comment section with your pro-AI talking points!)
“The task of the right eye is to peer into the telescope, while the left eye peers into the microscope.” Leonora Carrington
Leonora Carrington, The House Opposite
And while I do not claim to be burdened by being an empath like Kristen Doute is, I do refer back to that heart and soul thing. And in a world barreling towards an AI dystopia, I lean more and more into the fact that my best artwork is the work born out of my most human things like empathy and vulnerability and honesty and a desire to let the world know that I care.
“My art is the way I reestablish my bonds that tie me to the universe.” - Ana Mendieta
Your art is powerful and only you can unleash that power.
Why do you think they defunded the museums and libraries? Why do you think they kicked out leadership at the Library of Congress and the Kennedy Center? They are no dummies, these dummies. They know that art is power, whether openly subversive or not, it is power.
There are few opportunities in the world to truly impact another person enough to get them to act, and most of them come through creativity. Like creative language, creative images and creative events.
I would dare the critic who reviewed my work to sit at home some night just with one small insignificant canvas of mine — look at it and nothing else say for a period of thirty minutes or longer. I can make them cry for the loneliness they feel in the blue and white striped canvas.
– Forrest Bess, letter to Betty Parsons dated March 2, 1962
Forrest Bess, Thunderbird
Artist communities are the best communities.
I am so grateful to make art because I get to meet the coolest people as a result.
Have you ever been on the streets around Comic Con? There are no happier people on the planet. You can have your testosterone-addled UFC fans in Vegas, I’ll take adults who spent months making their homemade Wolverine or Pikachu costumes any day. And we should all be on a personal quest to conquer loneliness in ourselves and our community. Bring your aunt to the watercolor class or a quilter’s bee. Go on that wildlife photography tour with strangers. Join your local Urban Sketchers club.
A Great Day in Harlem, Art Kane
The number one reason to hang out with artists is because they are fun. The number two reason is that good art contagious, I see it all the time. Your artist community will make you a better artist. The Canadian painter Emily Carr had all but given up painting until, at the age of 56, she saw a group show of the Group of Seven in Toronto and was inspired to start painting again. Barkley L. Hendricks saw a portrait of Agostino Pallavincini by Anthony Van Dyck on a trip to London and set out to paint his series of Black icon paintings.
Barkley L. Hendricks, Blood (Donald Formey)
Art is a path to human connection.
On that note, what if those artists you hang out with become your true friends? What if you become intimate enough to tell them how you are feeling? How you are really feeling. What if you talk to them about your feelings of shame and pride and greed and sadness and euphoria? Then you will truly connect with another person. And true human connection is maybe our most wonderful art-making byproduct.
Creativity belongs to the artist in each of us. To create means to relate. The root meaning of the word art is 'to fit together' and we all do this every day.
- Corita Kent
Corita Kent, I Love You Very Much
So you see, this art making business is a full circle kind of enterprise. You give into it, you get back from it. You give in bravery, you get back human connection. You give honesty, you get back human reflection. But you won’t get anything back if you put nothing into it.
But you’re an artist, you’re super powerful. You can handle all of that bravery and energy and vulnerability required to make art in 2025. In The Painted Drum Louise Erdrich wrote about vulnerability and courage. “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart.”
It really is time to get back to work.
xoxox
Sara
Sara, this is so thoughtful and right. Thank you for sharing and pushing us all to continue making :)
Beautiful, just beautiful...