Welcome to Mind Your Business. I’m Beth Pickens and in this episode, I’ll talk about a question very common among artists. “Does my art really matter?” The short answer is ‘YES’ but listen to the episode to find out why.
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THIS EPISODE'S HOMEWORK:
This episode’s homework is about living the principle that your art matters.
In the next week, I want you to write a letter to your creative practice as a whole, all of the work you’ve ever made and all the work you will make. I want you, in the letter, to express your gratitude for what your practice has done for your life and the way it’s helped you. You can make a list. You can send a gushing email. You can make a drawing. You can write a proper Victorian love letter with a fountain pen.
Next, I want you to clear out one more hour than you would usually commit to art making. Give yourself one more hour. If you’ve been giving yourself zero hours in recent weeks, then you can use this as an opportunity to go from zero to 1.
Finally, I want you to make a list of at least 20 artists who have made work that has been deeply meaningful to you. Any discipline, living and dead, anywhere across place and time. Celebrities, anonymous artists, someone you know and love. List all their names. Pick one of these and write them a love letter for their art. Tell them all about what you loved and why and what their work has meant to you. If you can and the person is living, send the letter to them.
And, please, tell me how it goes.
Mind Your Practice is produced by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. You can find out more about her practice at carolynpennypackerriggs.com
Our show icon is made by Jess Cuevas.
Ep. 1: Does My Art Really Matter?
Welcome to Mind Your Business. I’m Beth Pickens and in this episode, I’ll talk about a question very common among artists. “Does my art really matter?” The short answer is ‘YES’ but listen to the episode to find out why.
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Hello artists. Maybe you yourself wondered this week or even today, ‘Does my art even matter?’ You may fully understand that Art itself is important but maybe you have doubts about your own work. I hear this question from artists a lot and it comes up when there is collective existential dread. And by this I mean the sense of overwhelm, anxiety and depression that occurs naturally when we are aware of political chaos, state violence, environmental degradation, and injustice.
I heard the question ‘does my art really matter’ repeatedly after the 2016 presidential election and I’ve noticed spikes since then that correlate, especially, to injustice and state violence. I’m hearing it a lot right now as the Movement for Black Lives calls everyone in to work for abolition.
Whether an artist suddenly feels their precious time and resources should be directed somewhere besides their art or they feel immobilized by overwhelm, fear, and grief - sometimes you may think that your art just isn’t very important.
First, you’re totally not alone. I’ve had many artists in my life, people whose work means the world to me, text me out of nowhere things like ‘should i quit? Should I give up? Why do I bother making anything? Is my art meaningless?’ and all kinds of other things maybe you think, too. Every time I respond with something like, ‘Are you out of your mind? Your work is so important to me and tons of other people!’ But I get it, most of us - artist or not - wonder about the value of our contributions in the world.
But consider this, artists need to make art. Why? Because it’s a fundamental way you take care of yourself, process information and feelings, communicate, and make sense of being alive. That means that your art matters because you matter. Your life is important and your art is a central part of your living so it has inherent value that is tremendous.
Think about what happens to you if a lot of time passes and you don’t work on anything creative or on a specific project. A lot of artists tell me that when this happens, they feel terrible. They feel depressed. They don’t feel like themselves, like they’re ungrounded or unmoored. They’re anxious and scattered. Something’s missing.
If your art practice helps you get through something like a viral pandemic then it matters. If your creative life helps you process grief and rage and paralysis that can happen as we watch people killed by cops then it matters. If your art helps you stay committed to all the things in your life that are vital to you: the people you love, the communities you create, your wellbeing and sanity, the world you want to live in then your art definitely matters.
So, part 1 of a two-part answer: your art is important because you and your life are important.
Now, Part 2 takes your art into the world. Sometimes the unspoken aspect of the question is ‘does my art matter … to anybody else?’ Maybe this dimension of the question applies to you. You understand art making’s essential function in your own life but you want to know if it matters to anyone else.
Again, this is a completely reasonable and common question I hear from artists at all stages of their career. Artists with big careers, artists just starting out, artists who share their work widely, and artists who haven’t done that yet. You want your work to be meaningful to other people. Of course you do! Your work is a manifestation of your time, resources, intellect, skill, turmoil, sacrifice, joy, grief, conflict, and patience - you want this to matter to other people.
Now this part is a little tricky for a few reasons. One is that you don’t have control over how people connect with your work because they bring their whole lives to it, just like you do with all the art and books and music and performance that you engage. But, as you do you part to help your work be in the world so other people can find it, you are creating the conditions for people to find meaning in your work. Because they will. You may never know about it, you may never hear about it but if you help your work get into the world, someone somewhere is going to have a very meaningful connection to it. Just like you do with other artists’ work all the time.
This part is also tricky because our human brains are wired to look for and cling to criticism more than love and praise. You know this already. If you have 50 comments and 49 are supportive, you’ll often fixate on the one that is critical or even just a dumb troll. We look for the information to confirm that we are bad. Why do we do this? Just because we have simple human minds. But you don’t have to get stuck in that situation.
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Ok, let’s talk about your homework. This episode’s homework is about living the principle that your art matters.
In the next week, I want you to write a letter to your creative practice as a whole, all of the work you’ve ever made and all the work you will make. I want you, in the letter, to express your gratitude for what your practice has done for your life and the way it’s helped you. You can make a list. You can send a gushing email. You can make a drawing. You can write a proper Victorian love letter with a fountain pen.
Next, I want you to clear out one more hour than you would usually commit to art making. Give yourself one more hour. If you’ve been giving yourself zero hours in recent weeks, then you can use this as an opportunity to go from zero to 1.
Finally, I want you to make a list of at least 20 artists who have made work that has been deeply meaningful to you. Any discipline, living and dead, anywhere across place and time. Celebrities, anonymous artists, someone you know and love. List all their names. Pick one of these and write them a love letter for their art. Tell them all about what you loved and why and what their work has meant to you. If you can and the person is living, send the letter to them.
And, please, tell me how it goes.
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Thanks for listening to Mind Your Practice and be sure to subscribe so you get all the bonus episodes coming your way. If you are an artist who likes to be told what to do, I am more than happy to boss you around through email and social media. You can find me on Instagram at @bethpickensconsulting. Join my mailing list on my website bethpickens.com. Thanks for listening and keep making art.