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Create Whatever The Fuck You Want

Artistic Expression Over Commercialized Skills

This piece on creativity is a provocation for all creative writers. I’d love to hear your responses and thoughts in the comments.

While listening to the famous music producer, Rick Rubin, talk about his book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, he made the following point.

“Creating art for an audience is a skill set. It’s more of a commercial endeavor as opposed to an artistic one.” — Rick Rubin

This hit me like a bolt of lightning thrown by Zeus himself. It empowered my conception of what it means to be an artist. The inspiration flowing through me got me excited about my artistic endeavors.

You don’t need skill to make art. Sure, it helps, but it’s not required. Talent is innate ability, but you don’t need it to create.

Children are far more artistic than adults. When adults do art, they are only trying to tap into their own childhood-like wonder and imagination to extract something deeply held within them. For children, the source of art is spilling over the rim of their minds.

Play is a natural form of expression. Art and play are sisters of imagination. Creativity is the parent that does not use metrics or any sort of objective lens to define a creation.

Scribbling with a crayon, singing gibberish, or twirling in a circle — it’s all art. The expression of one person might resonate with another or it might not (that’s okay). The experience of another’s art, whether it be positive or negative, and the overall conclusion on the art itself, are both independent of the art.

Channeling creative expression to appeal to the independent opinions of an audience, whomever it may be, is a skill that aims at something outside the boundary of the sphere of art into more of a social field. Painting a portrait, hitting a note, or performing a dance — it’s all skill. While some might be born with the ability to draw, sing, or leap; creating with the intent of pleasing others could prove to be easier for them than for someone without it, but reaching an audience isn’t certain.

Step further outside of the artistic boundary and find a commercial space. It is a kind of cyst growing on the audience. I imagine a football field is a more pleasant analogy.

Within the 81,000 square foot box of turf a game is played — the creative space. Outside of the boundary where the bench and managers sit is where skills matter, or the skill space. Beyond the field and up in the stands where fans cheer is the commercial space.

Out on the field, all that matters is the ball and the net. On the sidelines, points and other stats are more of the focus. The rest of the stadium is the commercial event actualized through the fans.

As a player, creator, artist — I might choose to focus on just one, multiple, or all of these realms when playing, creating, and arting. The art itself should be the only focus; not the measurement and commodification of the art. Art is a dish best served raw.

One’s experience of an art piece is always independent of the expression.

The analysis of art sometimes takes on a hyper-rational flavor to extract the meaning, as in the artist’s intent, of/from the art. A creator’s attempt to bring emotion, social issues, and an overall expression is separate from what one experiencing the art might define it as. The meaning of art lies behind the eye of the beholder and in the heart of the creator.

They have two different meanings. It’s two different experiences, from two different angles. They will never merge as one.

The meaning art brings to someone is always different between others regardless of how similar they are and it changes over time. It is separate from any single interpretation or conception.

Therefore, the aim to make your art appealing to others is purely a commercial skill. It follows that this kind of endeavor is not in the realm of creating — it’s more like the business of art. Creative acts are self-contained and deserve to be created without the pressure of the external world.

I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about what other people think of my work, if my stats are increasing, and ultimately, if the money is flowing.

The commercialization of art is not only a systemic issue, it’s an individual issue. Let’s break from the chains and begin to redefine what it means to create art. A paradox will break the paradigm and a new field will flow with expression and open up into a new world where art is only itself.

The next time you sit down at your workbench, desk, or drawing board, create for the sake of creating. Release the unique expression of your own artistic value. Create whatever the fuck you want.