A True Artist is Simple
A true artist creates solely because he wants to
Now, now, let’s establish just one thing before we go any further. I am literally no one to say who is or isn’t a ‘true’ artist. The point of this writing isn’t so people can find out if they’re ‘true artists’ or not.
I’m writing this just because I want to.
That last sentence sums up the whole point nicely, but I want to walk you through how I got the idea for this article.
Today I had a conversation with a very interesting man. A professional photographer, who teaches photography, but also does contract portraits. He earns his living with photography.
I asked him a question. I asked him if earning money with his art didn’t kill the joy of photography for him, to which he said that every artist at one point in their career encounters a sort of crossroads. And there are two choices.
Create what you want and earn what you get
Or
Create what others want and get however much you’re willing to ask
He told me that he shot two weddings in his life, and that was horribly boring and uninspiring.
It was good money, but he said that was the moment he realized that he’s never doing that again and that he’ll be doing photography for his own joy and no one else’s.
We also talked about how the same exact thing happens when you replace money with popularity or publicity of any kind or volume.
Even a few more likes on a creation can make you start doubting if and why it’s better than anything else you created. Even if you don’t enjoy it.
You start creating stuff that will hopefully speak to a lot of people, and in that pursuit you forget that you started doing this for your joy, and because you wanted to.
That discussion made me realize something. I haven’t been writing not because no ideas came to mind, but because I wanted to write something that would truly speak to a lot of people. It’s not a bad thing if it does, but that isn’t why I started in the first place.
I started writing just because I wanted to. And I will continue for that same reason.
I didn’t worry as much about it being good or bad, interesting or boring, I cared about creating it. I love writing. Unbeknownst to myself I lost that very simple truth.
I’m glad to uncover that truth, because another conclusion that me and the photographer came to is this: there’s nothing complicated about art, artists do it because it makes life more interesting… it’s really that simple.
So if you ever had any doubts about starting a creative hobby — forget those doubts. Create because you want to. There’s no other reason to.
It’s truly that simple.
