I was having a conversation with my friend Matthew about Bob Dylan and how incredible his lyrics are. It made me think about how Matt has great taste and the art he sends me (mostly music and movies) always resonates with me. Then I remembered when we had a writing class together in college and I was constantly impressed by the creativity of Matt’s short stories.
But Matt never really makes any art himself, or at least not anything that he’s shared with me. So while we were texting I told him that he should, make some art.
And he texted back, “It would be nice to have an outlet just not sure what would be best. And then motivating myself to create something just for (the sake of) creating it I think is another struggle.”
I think the audience is key for motivation. We want to share our art with others. I’m a big believer that lifestyles are art as well. We want to get out and have conversation, dance, and generally appear and perform for others.
It’s the same for art, and I think one of the most defining things about art for our generation is that there are so many low barrier outlets to get your art out there, e.g., blogs for writing, Instagram for photography, Spotify for music, etc.
Just getting it out there, even if you only share it with people while you’re out at a party and meet someone new and they say, “Hey, what do you do?”
Instead of responding with your title at work (which is just a convenient identifier) you can pull out your iPhone and open your Instagram and be like, “Here are the photos I take of the tops of building because I think it’s art where the defined industrial buildings of man meet the sky with stark contrast.”
And all of a sudden you’re having a real conversation with that person about something deeper and more artistic and personal that makes you feel, which is something we all want on the weekends, especially after a long week at work.