I was and still am, constantly looking for inspiration from other artist and while doing so, I ask myself, why? Why do I try to paint (for instance) when it causes so much anxiety and doesn't feel natural-yet feel like I have to do it.
How do these artist who I admire, turn out such great work on a "regular" basis? How are they motivated?!
I want to ask you the simple question: Why? Why do you do what you do? Why do spend your time, painstakingly creating art?
These are your answers.
Posts tagged: art
Shay Kun
“I guess born to do, both my parents are practicing artists so I am second generation of painters, it runs in my blood :).”
Eli Horn
“The bottom line is, I create because I love to create. I always have and likely always will. With that said, I have found in the past that I am often searching for a context for my creations. For some reason I need a reason—or at least a feeling that I am striving to embody something larger than a simple visual.
Every now and again I end up in a head-space where I can find no conceptual means for my art and I end up on silent rants to myself about the worthlessness of creating yet another painting when thousands upon thousands of canvases covered in paint already clutter countless corners and walls.
But the bottom line is, I love to create, and every time I have a falling out with art, I can do nothing but accept that I will continue to create art forever…”
Chrystal Chan
“Art is my way of speaking and sharing thoughts as a universal language. I want to share spiritual messages that are important to myself and/or others and this is one of the few ways that I know how.”
Melissa Forman
“I’ve always been drawn to art because images can attract someone, draw them in, and tell them a story all at the same time. I create art as a means of communication; it allows me to say things that I can’t put into words. Making art is my way of learning about myself and sharing my experiences with the world. I create art with the hope that others will find something in my work that they can relate to and understand in their own way. I create artwork in order to tell my story and inspire others to tell their own.”
Pakayla Rae Biehn
“I make art as a sort of marker of time. Or more specifically, to exaggerate time, a partial manipulation. I like the feeling of redefining. I think there’s something to that. Also, being able to create a thing, a painting in my case, that is in the world with you fully.”
Ricardo Alessio
“As an uncompromising idealist since my early years, my childhood pursuit of art sprung from a compulsion to create something better than what I saw in reality. This was not with the intent of surrendering to the realm of fantasy, but rather in hopes of generating a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that would allow me and others to re-evaluate what we perceive and evolve accordingly.
As I’m sure is the case with many artists, there is a significant gap between what I would like my motivations to be, and what I find my actual motivations to be in practice. I would very much like to say that I am motivated by a pure desire to communicate on a clear and transcendent level. I would like to say that I am pursuing a universal mode of expression that uplifts people or renders some new truth or perspective.
At the same time, I must admit that a large part of my drive toward quality or quantity of art unfortunately stems from my ambitious nature, whether I acknowledge it at the moment or not. The more I would love to think of myself as a proponent of unadulterated visual information and interest, the more I find myself to be the visual equivalent of a gangster rapper, doggedly pursuing some form of recognition. At the same time, I have to constantly guard against these short-sighted and misdirected motivations, these attempted conquests of completely arbitrary intellectual “territory”.
Thus, my motivations for producing art are a continuous flux between my ideals of a principled and complete approach, and their counterpart in my own pragmatic and self-centered drive to make the proverbial “mark”. In summary, I am constantly aware that the “game” is, by definition, manufactured and irrelevant, a gratuitous challenge. However, I’ve always been obsessed with gratuitous challenges, and am faced with the task of turning vague ambition into a more positive and encompassing force.”
Rainer Maria Rilke might just as well have been writing to each of us: ”Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what recompense may come from the outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and find everything in himself and in Nature to whom he has attached himself.”
Justin McAllister
“I’m blessed with an overly active and graphic visual thinking style. That’s the HOW. The WHY is that I can’t turn it off :)”
Ashley Lande
“I believe art on a thematic level should be about the polarities of experience and above all express what is beautiful and what is absolutely real. For me my work is closely tied to my personal cosmology / theology, in fact, it would be impossible for me to divorce the two or, in other words, to do something allied with a trend or strictly for money. Above all I create as an act of devotion to LOVE which is the absolute and only reality. Also, I simply enjoy drawing and painting. It’s a meditative act, one for which I’ve always had a faculty and to which I’ve always been attracted above all other expressive modes. It’s also essential to my creativity to occasionally venture into alternate states of consciousness. Creativity is so muted if we remain imprisoned in the ‘normal’ state of (un)consciousness as is culturally dictated to us. We are only here on Earth in these bodies for a short time, so we must use our gifts and abilities fully! Overanalysis is paralysis. I believe that if you are working from a place of devotion and presence, you cannot err.”
Jennifer Hamby-Brandon
“How could I not create art?! It is my God-given love and passion. It is one way I understand and relate to my Creator. His creation is what drives the inspiration of this artist, whether through beautiful landscapes, adorable pets, or simply a child learning to ride her bike. He always manages to show His creative beauty to me daily, and that will forever keep me in awe.”
Derick Kempf
“Man! so simple yet, truly, a very multi-faceted answer. I wish I had one set statement that could be succinct and still deep and complex. For me, creating and painting is something that didn’t just happen, it has been something that has grown. A very comparable analogy that can help describe WHY I create is like love. I love my wife. I love my kids. I love my God. I love my family. That seems to fit the analogy here, so I’m going to roll with it.
I am a Kempf. I am part of a family and I have grown up with certain physical and emotional features. I never really thought about loving my family or why I loved them (or not liked them at times), I just did. In growing older (I’m not that old, only 26 now) I have begun to love them differently and love them better and become aware of how I love them poorly. I grew up drawing and sketching and painting and making things. Most of the time I was imagining and visualizing things in my mind. his love has grown. I have been fortunate to learn trades like graphic design and web design to help sustain an income and a daily creative outlet, but painting has changed too. I find myself doing a lot less of it with a lot more on my plate these days and a lot more people looking to be loved and cared for.
Painting for me has been recreational. It has been “on the side”. I has been a way to make something that is solely and uniquely mine. A very common word to describe it is my “expression”. It fits. It’s totally true. A way to no just copy a picture from a comic book anymore, but a physical piece of my thought and ideas that can offer vast meaning. Or, like what I picked up in art school when I started doing graffiti, it can serve my shadow, or my dark side, when I make it seeking other peoples approval, or compliments. It can feed my desire to have that encouragement and positive energy. That can fill me up, but only for a short while. Then I have found my self wanting more. That’s why I made art in public and on the street in public places. I found out that I could reach more people and make things that more people that I know could see and offer feedback.
Lately, when I’ve been able to paint, my art has been more focused. I’ve really put more time into creating things that can “change people.” I like developing positive messages, or pieces of truth, that can reveal something that’s profound and eye opening. Maybe make something that could change someone. Maybe make something that would lead someone to think about reality in a new way. I like that thought.
So, as I continue to grow and my family that I’m a part of grows too, I find that love and art seem to be very similar. Actually, they are the same. Both have been part of me since birth and both are continually growing and changing. I look forward to creating more time to paint and learn in the future. I also look forward to loving and caring for my family. They are my two loves. :)”
Martin Wittfooth
“My work stems from a personal desire to process and reflect on the increasingly haywire relationship, confusion, and general detachment – both of experience and understanding - that the modern-day industrialized world has with its surrounding environment, and the forced and uneasy assimilations that take place when the two inevitably meet. By removing the human figure from my works and instead portraying nature in man-made or manufactured settings, my work forces us to be impartial observers to these scenes and to process the tension within them as mere witnesses rather than active participants. Much of this work deals with violence, disquiet, chaos and collapse, but not entirely absent in these works is also the suggestion of hope and the presence of beauty.”
Scott Teplin
‘Spend time making art because I’m usually curious to see what something will look like after I’m finished. Once I make one thing - I think of so many ways I could have made it better. So in order to see what I’m picturing in my head, I draw something new based on the thing that came before it.”
Kevin Ledo
“I ask myself the same question all the time, and I’m often inclined to think there is some bigger picture as to why we are compelled to create art. I entertain many different ideas, from it being some byproduct of our evolution, or perhaps creating art is filling some gaps in our communication within our societies. Maybe creating art is channelling ideas from some divine source or other beings, or maybe I just really feel a need to communicate on a level that I can’t any other way. But really, in the end, I have no fuckin’ clue. I’m not sure why I have this drive, but when I listen to myself, to what it is that I really want to do with my life, creating art is the most honest answer.”
Ryan Adams
“First of all, I am NOT expressing myself. I think the creation of art can very quickly become an exercise in masturbation when people only see it as a way to “express” themselves, oftentimes not even knowing what that really means. I create because I believe it is something woven into the DNA of us all, this innate desire to take part in creation as simultaneous action and production. Someone once asked composer John Cage what the “meaning” was behind some of the sound she chose, and Cage responded that he just loves the sound of sound. I love the process of painting. It doesn’t matter to me what my subject is really, or rather, the subject of my art IS the painting itself. I don’t have any emotional connection with my subjects, because I don’t really see more than shape and c! olor, light and line. To me, the act of creation is enough.”
