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8 Years Ago
Please understand this thread is not to bag on anyone who creates art to make a living. With my life circumstances being what they are it just makes me more melancholy and philosophic than ever. I am at my mom's house, which is filled with the various stages of my development of my art. I am thinking a great deal about mortality and reasons for life in the first place and I find myself wondering where the obsessive drive to create comes from? I am not rich and will never be, but create art. I am not famous and will never be, but create art. Why?
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8 Years Ago
Because that's how you're wired. You could try to stop, but it will just come out in other ways. I used to doodle in class during lectures, and my teachers would reprimand me for not paying attention. They didn't understand that doodling while I was listening was the only way I could retain all the information. They thought I was just daydreaming, but nope, it's just how I'm made. So when I worked in the semiconductor industry at a very analytical job, I would bring a notebook with me into the cleanroom to draw in during passdowns. I could have tried to tough it out without it, but why? It's part of who I am and who I was created to be.
8 Years Ago
Human beings doing human things. Filling in the gaps, and making meaning where none is evident is what we do here on planet Earth.
8 Years Ago
Making a living is just a by-product of creating art. I'm betting most of us here will admit to being creative -- in various ways -- long before we even knew 'making a living' was possible.
I agree with April -- it's the way we're wired. It's why actors starve, ballerinas starve themselves, and artists buy tools and paint (or software and hardware) with their grocery money. ;-)
The brain is still largely a mystery; art, and the need for some of us to make it, is part of that. I think it's the same with any interest and/or passion.
8 Years Ago
Random thoughts on mortality
---------------------------------------
Mortality is wonderful Ronald
our path in time is known
our efforts have a start and finish
our worries come to rest
and, in jest i say
because any "mistakes" are thereby not eternal!
and later generations can fix them
Just as we can continuously fix others mistakes...
and as the new generations too can benefit from the creations we make of today
healthier lives
wonderful experiences in art
new frontiers in sciences
engineering us to the stars...
to be experienced -
as a child - with innocence
in youth - with glee
in age - with experience
in later life - with wisdom and gentleness returned..
and in resurrection??
with a new point of view... the light is probably different up there... :-)
--------------
i guess artwork is a part of a person that comes close to immortality... well it lasts a few generations more at least...
and photographs and videos make memories near immortal
paintings last 100s of years with care and attention
digitally, they have become immortal
and so will we rise imortal? are we a digital ghost in a biological shell? or vice versa perhaps, perhaps not ;-)
does the spirit paint first? or you?
condolences to you Ronald
enjoying your threads, as always
8 Years Ago
dna
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”
― Pablo Picasso
8 Years Ago
Ronald, why is always a good question to ask but not always easy to answer. However with respect to art I think and have asked myself the very question why? and the best I can answer it without getting all philosophical is as follows: for one, it brings me pleasure. It is challenging, it is something new every day I engage it, it can bring pleasure to others, it make me think, it is a means for me to communicate in a visual way, it is a form of expression, it is a means to transform thoughts,ideas,desires and feelings into something tangible that may out live me, it is a pursuit into the things that are appealing, beautiful, mysterious, abstract, and spiritual, and lastly even though there are other reasons not stated, it also has the potential to make us money if not rich.
8 Years Ago
Basically the modern world has provided people with plenty of free time. They have to fill it with something. ;-)
8 Years Ago
A creative's mind is wired to create.....I always have....from mud pies in my granny's backyard....painting.....sculpting.....flower arranging.....making up recipes.....It is just what we do!
8 Years Ago
Ronald,
Losing a loved one you lose a part of who you, or if it were me, are as a person. Give it time.
Dave
8 Years Ago
I'd post my reason for my drive to create but it is firmly based in religion, a banned topic.
Suffice to say that creating gives us a glimpse into something far greater and 'forever' than ourselves.
From that posture, the rest makes sense.
8 Years Ago
There was a thread a couple of months ago about "why do you make art?", and my answer then as now is the same...because I HAVE to. Yes I'm hardwired to be creative...I get some of it from my dad, who taught art, was a coppersmith, and went to photography school when he took early retirement. Being creative is my sanity. I've always been this way, for as far back as I can remember.
8 Years Ago
Mario ;)
Such a shame that religious ideas cannot be civilly discussed here. It is the driving force in life for so many, regardless of the particular faith practiced.
8 Years Ago
If you start out as a young kid with the intentions of pitching in a World Series, or starting at quarterback in a Super Bowl or winning The Masters in golf, the odds are astronomically set against you.
Considering how many people take up art compared professional sports, if you start out to get rich making art, you are probably more like to win the starting job as quarterback in the Super Bowl, a World Series or win the Masters then get significantly rich making art.
8 Years Ago
Most of what we do in this life doesn't make us money. Most of is actually costs us. But we do it because we find enjoyment and enrichment in it. My sister loves to cook and work in her garden. She has never made a dime from either, but it gives her life a little meaning. (And keeps her fed, but that's beside the point.) I'm not entirely sure why people think that one should only create if there's a chance to make money out of it. I love to write. Been working on fiction for years and years and years. I've barely even shared any of it, much less made money off it. But in my mind, it's more of who I am than my photography.
People who think art is only art if it pays are looking at it all wrong.
8 Years Ago
At first I thought this was about The Doors LOL Curse or blessing I often wondered? I was born with it.
8 Years Ago
Why ask "Why?" ... ? Just keep doing it.
But if you MUST have an answer, then here's mine:
... to engage deeply with the form building dynamics of the cosmos.
Artists, thus, are the original cosmonauts.
The end is not gone. The end is the new beginning. It's just a matter of perspective.
8 Years Ago
Remember the old saying: when one is a hammer, everything looks like a nail? Well when one is an artist we look at everything through creative eyes. I have been in the yard cleaning up. I walk back to the porch and ask my wife where are the 2 sticks that were laying there? Threw them away of course, why? No those are aren't just sticks, they are sculptures. can't you see the man? can't you see the giraffe? Wife shakes her head, but later when the sticks are indeed sculptures, she is happy.
Why? because this is what we do.
8 Years Ago
For an artist, the perspective is NOT on the canvas, but in the attitude.
You may quote me on that.
8 Years Ago
Ronald, every time you create something, you are remaking the world in a new image. It is healing and transformational for you, and for all who experience your creation.
The spark that generates your existence contains creative power, and you can not help but continue that creative process, because it lives in every particle of your being.
8 Years Ago
I have been an artist in many different disciplines, including gardening, painting and decorating my teenage bedroom, publishing, photography, designing and so on.
But those are merely hobbies compared to the one that is most important: Living Life.
To me, living my life is an art form and I started as early as age 5 asking the questions that have helped me get this far successfully.
That's why, at age 83, I don't believe my life is behind me, but before me.
I am just starting out and can't wait to see what lies ahead.
8 Years Ago
When I was a child, our family was poor, I never own any toys so I use whatever I could find to create things to amuse myself, . For the same simple reason, I still creating for myself.
8 Years Ago
I agree that it is how you are wired to an extent, but in my case, my parents fostered art in us as children. We were encouraged to draw and create and play music. I got more praise for a drawing or concert than an A in English. I often wonder if I was raised by accountants or programmers if I would have an artistic bone in my body. I do wonder that sometimes!
Sounds like you are cleaning out your parents' house, Ronald. If you lost a loved one recently, I am very sorry.
8 Years Ago
What else is there to do with all the time at your hand?
The question is all wrong:
How could anyone not do art :)
8 Years Ago
""How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30am by an alarm clock...leap out of bed, force feed, dress, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?"
Charles Bukowski
8 Years Ago
Your second paragraph, Joel....thanks for that.I was trying to figure out how to say it without getting all religious...you nailed it.
8 Years Ago
Here And Gone
To create and consume.
Is the nature of all.
What once stood firm
Is sure to fall
Replaced by another
Creation at hand
Destroyed by time
Or the will of man
Be it art, religion
Word or trade
We breathe life into things
Which soon will fade
Joe Burgess 7/27/2015
jb-imagery.com
8 Years Ago
An artist is a mirror of the universe. The purpose of creating art, thus, is to reflect.
You may quote me on this too.
8 Years Ago
Lawrence, I don't enjoy it, but I gotta pay the rent, the art doesn't even pay for itself.
8 Years Ago
I spent (read: wasted) a lot of years doing what I went to college for (information technology) because in my family only book smarts was an option (raised by a wandering band of physicists). I finally reached the point where I came to realize that if I was going to reach any level of happy I had to stop doing what I was taught to do, and instead be what I am... an artist. Course, I can't deny that all that tech knowledge came in reeeeal handy when I designed and built my first professional website in 1999, I had a literal meeting of the minds between the left and right sides of my brain; however, I've worked hard to make the right side bigger at the cognitive expense of the left ever since. Tech has happily moved on without me, I even still code the HTML of my soon-to-be-gone-boutique by hand in a text editor just like I did in 1999 because I staunchly refuse to learn CSS. Giving myself permission to be what I am is the best decision I ever made as far as general happiness and inner peace go. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that while I DID tech, I AM an artist. Artists make art, whether they do it for a living or not. Personally, I wouldn't trade making art for anything in the world (including money, apparently ;)
8 Years Ago
For me, it's a flowing energy expressing what I am and enriching my environment. There is no room in my house that isn't painted with a mural, there is no part in my yard that isn't filled with plants, flowers and manicured or wild garden...but people around me have a thousand hobbies that are no different...they boat, they sing opera, play piano create beautiful cars to race, they have beautiful homes, there are motorcycle clubs, or crotch rockets, pilots ...chitty chitty bang bang flew over my house the other day. I see artists pouring their life energy into their drums, race cars, career, Harley Davison club, church, kids, soccor moms (this one I'll never get!)...it's all the same same. We create with our life force.
Why do you feel you'll never be recognized...Ronald, your work is very unique...it's a new genre so please Shut-Up about never being recognized...you are already there. Your work is awesome and meaningful.
8 Years Ago
David...beleive me, I understand.
The author was simply stating his own disgust and fears over life and working as a writer.
This is the complete quote;
"“It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”"
here's two more "job/life" related quotes by CB;
“I drank for some time, three or four days. I couldn't get myself to read the want ads. The thought of sitting
in front of a man behind a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified for a job, was too
much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for
the moment it didn't have you by the throat.”
“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
8 Years Ago
When I was a young lad (way back, when there was such a thing as a "Young Lad") I would, along with my buddy Jackie Demchack, build towns, made of whatever we could find in the backyard...There was always the point where Jackie felt it was finished and I wanted to continue.....He wanted to stop creating and start bombing with the pile of rocks he had accrued..I could never understand the pleasure he got from that.
He became an engineer
I went into the arts.