27 | Who do you create for?
Hello all!
I am aiming to get back to a regular posting rhythm. This is coming quite a bit later than expected. After returning from a couple of weeks in Italy, we experienced a family emergency that pulled all of our attention.
In this piece, I am focused on answering the seemingly simple question: Who do you create for?
To answer, I will jump from the painting of the Sistine Chapel to an answer by a philosopher at the end of a podcast, and end with a brief letter from Kurt Vonnegut.
It is a winding road; I hope you stay with me.
Best,
Evan
A tense relationship
The Sistine Chapel was empty when our tour group entered. Our heads turned upwards as we walked toward the center of the chapel. Positioned nearly 70 feet above was Michelangelo’s masterpiece. Our tour guide explained the history of the chapel, and my interest perked up as she explained the artist’s reluctance to take on the project and the relationship between Pope Julius II and Michelangelo.
As I listened to the tensions between the artist and the client, I pondered what Michelangelo felt then. As an artist, was he trying to avoid a job he didn’t want or a client he thought might be problematic? Or was he wanting to focus elsewhere?
Inevitably, Michelangelo took on the project. The story the guide told us suggests that to hire the artist, creative control was passed to the artist.
At that moment, with my eyes on the ceiling, taking in Michelangelo’s interpretation of the creation story, a question surfaced: Who do you create for?
Do we create to stay in the good graces of the Vatican? (it probably applies a lot less now) Do we create to attract attention? Do we create because others are? Or do we create to use our voice, our vision? Do we create to put ourselves into the world?
The original impulse
No matter how far you are into your creative career, you may recall where you started and what you felt then.
Now, take a moment and ask yourself: Does that original impulse hold right now? On your last piece, did you feel the surge of creativity as you sculpted, painted, or wrote?
I think artists can maintain their original impulse, but we have to know what it is. We have to recognize why we do what we do. And to do that, we must take the time to examine our choices, thoughts, and actions.
What do I mean by that?
We all have a view of the world that is uniquely ours.
Rather than embracing trends and algorithms, there is, most likely, a healthier way to create. The trick is balancing the demands of the job (income, business management, clients, etc.) and the creative component.
To uncover my impulses for being creative, I’ve spent mornings reflecting on my thoughts and interpretations of the world through proprioceptive writing. This has allowed me to pull myself out of cycles of observation in my journaling and clarify what my thoughts mean and where they come from.
This method of writing has created more confidence in my perspective and thought processes.
Asking myself, “What do I mean by that?” has pushed me past ruminations and into places of understanding. I’ve been working to utilize this method to dig deeper into what my voice, as a creative, actually wants to be making and sharing in my creative work.
Why understand your why?
Taking on paid jobs is essential for any creative. They are vital to creating a sustainable business and allowing us the time to take on our work and cultivate our voice. But we have to make time for our work.
This is something I am currently working on—setting time aside for my work and honoring the impulses that are driving it.
Many of us may not be able to take months off to work on a personal project, but I believe there are small ways to continue honing our voice and vision and gaining a clearer understanding of who we create for.
A simple answer
The answer to the question: Who do you create for? could be simple.
We create for ourselves.
But, the more I reflected on my decisions to create, I realized that this answer leaves out the daily dynamics that surround the work that I do. Over the years, I’ve learned that what spurs me to create is often a melding of the situation that I am currently in and my original impulse.
Agnes Callard has a great reflection on her what motivates her to continue participating in public philosophy at the end of a recent episode of The Gray Area:
“Ok, philosophy is like romance, which is like when you are in your whatever late teens early twenties, it’s this exciting thing where you’re going to figure out the meaning of life. And, like, you stay up late in your dorm room, and you have these long conversations, and you think that everything in your life is going to be an immediate product of thought. And, it’s like this revelation.
And then …
You major in philosophy, and you go to grad school, and you publish and get tenure and blah blah blah. And before you know it, you’ve totally forgotten that you got into this because you wanted to understand the meaning of life.
And that’s a huge danger to lose hold of that. And that danger really animates me, it really worries me. And, I’d rather be ridiculous in public than lose hold of that original impulse.”
Callard’s willingness to be “ridiculous in public” to maintain hold of the original impulse for her work is inspiring. Continuing to create, share, and engage with our craft is essential for maintaining the original inspiration as we navigate years of being professional creatives. To do that, we must put ourselves into the world and engage with how we see the world.
Kurt Vonnegut’s assignment
As I was mindlessly scrolling one night over the past couple of weeks, Instagram’s algorithm brought up this often-shared letter from the author Kurt Vonnegut’s response to Xavier High School in 2006.
The short letter is a gem of inspiration, but the last two paragraphs stayed with me:
“Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six-line poem about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?
Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces and discard them into widely separated trash receptacles. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.”
I am not recommending that we all create something and destroy it, but the idea of embracing creativity for yourself and your vision is worth embracing.
Creating can be a process of becoming and seeing yourself for who you are. But, to dig deeper and recognize your vision, you have to create space and create with your vision.
There will be times when we have to create for others, but when there are opportunities for us to create for ourselves …
Seize it.
Links:
The project of Socratic love with Agnes Callard on The Gray Area
Sistine Chapel ceiling on Wikipedia
Proprioceptive writing: a method for embodied self-reflection by Dr. Hannah Rose at Ness Labs
Published Work:
I had two relatively large pieces run in the past month. Most recently, “In a thriving Michigan county, a community goes to war with itself” was published in The Washington Post. And last month, I completed my first assignment for The New York Times. Additionally, I’ve been on quite a few assignments at various educational institutions in the area and some commercial work, too. Below is a photo from an extrusion facility I was photographing at last month.