You write that, "Creatives must be afforded the space and permission to do their work at the uncomfortable edges."
-- the thing is, even if we're not 'afforded' the space and permission, we'll do it anyway -- because we can't NOT do it!
We are the edge-walkers, the outsiders. No change ever comes from the status quo, it's always from the edges and underbelly of society. And that's where the artists and seers live too...
--And it's where the best conversations happen too, like here :)
Like many of you, I’ve been thinking a lot about art / creativity in collapse.
I’ve struggled with perfectionism and it severely impacted my creativity or at least sharing my creativity with the world.
I often compare myself to the *best* of the best. And too often thought it wasn’t worth doing something if I wasn’t going to be amazing at it. Why? Where does that come from? Well, I suppose because our modern society has taught me that scale, visibility, monetization, accolades, etc are the measure of value when it comes to art.
Because of the industrialization and commodification of art and of creativity.
I’m reminding myself (and maybe finally believing) that I don’t need to be the best. I don’t need to be amazing. Or impressive. I don’t even need to be good - I just need to be true and connected.
In imagining a smaller, less globalized future, I’m hoping that will encourage people to lean in more deeply to their creativity and bring out more artists content with making for themselves and their immediate community.
I hope in the same way that there will be more community gardens, there are more community bands, galleries, theatre, etc etc
A band on every block! A mural down every lane way!
Seth Godin's words have helped with the quandary you describe. He says "real artists ship"...which is a very "marketing speak" way of saying, creatives just get it out there, they emit.
I agree - we are going to have be all kinds of creative and innovative in our own lives....but on a humble scale...like when we were kids.
I've only read the first couple paragraphs of this chapter but my god, it resonates!! It brings up two anecdotes from my life. The first being an article my dad send me today about how due to budget constraints, 3 new schools in our local school board will have pared down music programs, meaning they won't get funding for instruments. This is sad on the face of it alone, but as my dad, a retired music teacher himself, explained to me, kids in older grades often don't feel comfortable singing, which is likely why instrumental music is taught in those early teen years. So for kids who don't want to sing, they'll be left with a very poor music education. As someone who has gained much joy and confidence through music, this feels tragic.
The other thing I thought of is how my FIL is obsessed with AI and has been raving about how he can change pictures of his grandkids. For instance, don't like the background of a photo? Put the kid in an AI playground image. Photography will lose its soul this way, in my opinion. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was several years ago when my youngest was an infant and I asked him to print a photo of her for me, he edited out her prominent forehead birthmark. I was furious! I found it beyond insulting that he would feel the need to airbrush my infant daughter, like somehow already, she was yet another female the world viewed as lesser. Needless to say I told him I did not want his creepy edited photo. And this was just photo editing software, before AI really got its clutches on things.
I have some big feelings about this obviously! Lol
Gosh, that line from your dad - kids don't feel comfortable singing. Yes, but we do it anyway. It pains me when we allow kids' discomfort to dictate what they get to experience.
Well, I was the one who inferred the discomfort part. What my dad actually said was its hard to get grade 7s and 8s (13/14 year olds) to sing. I agree with you from an anxiety avoidance point of view, that we have to push through our discomfort. My point really was that different kids thrive in different ways and I think music and the arts in general is so vital to education and humanity that short changing kids' options for musical education is tragic. And as usual, it will be those already marginalized due to socioeconomic factors who will suffer most. Families with money can put their kids in private lessons but those without will, well go without...
I just wish I could get all the parents of the young people I teach art to, to read this so they can appreciate my subject is just as necessary as English and Maths. Although it’s never going to be seen as such. But I tell all my students humans were making art for just as long as they have been making language and doing (basic) maths…I’ve been doing a lot of tiny paintings lately and unconsciously most of them are nature images. I feel like I’ve been accidentally recording everything that is dear to me that we might lose.
I hear you. Until the media and systems in charge tell society so, English, maths and grades will take precedence. But keep doing what you’re doing, our children deserve to be allowed to be in spaces to be creative, to be curious and to make mistakes - and perhaps see that mistakes can be beautiful.
I resonate with your sense of what was being taken from the little girl, the opportunities being ripped away. Also the assumption that anything could ever mechanize the expression of love and admiration. My felt sense with AI is a kind of robbery. At our home there’s a rule that no one can help you into the tree. If you want to climb it, the work you’ll do to be able to get into it are the skills that will you keep you safe and on track as you go higher and higher.
Are you referring here to the Francis Weller quote?
“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give."
yes; take action as you must ... loose the arrow toward the target; even if and it does continually move, fade, ebb and flow from understanding and vision.
pause in the paralysis of the stressed prickle
yes; take space as you must
return to flow to the paradox of the impossible error
I love this Chapter and like so many of the Chapters; can stand alone as a book. I will revisit again but your " .. Art - reminds us of what it is to be human ...” is in synch with the video I have just listened to by Julia Butterfly Hill - the activist who lived in a tent near the top of a tree, affectionately known as Luna. In this video she returns on the 25th anniversary and is sobbing as she recognises in some ways she let go of her authentic self (her creative self too) https://www.instagram.com/julia_butterfly_hill_official/reel/DDiPweOPUot/. Gotta go and will come back Thanks!
Hi Sarah - you write about AI and “how it denies a child the important creative act of representing their feelings out in the world, of reaching both inwards and outwards to communicate love and awe for their heroine.” I also wonder about the message we are sending our kids that their words aren’t good enough in the first place, and that they need to run their thoughts through an AI tool to “perfect” them before publishing. That sounds awful to me!! How will they learn to communicate authentically if they don’t practice??
Yes!!!! A horrible message. But we are getting this message, too. Our faces aren't good enough without AI filters...even nature is not beautiful enough. Have you noticed travel IG photos are now super surreal? It's just horrible
Oh, Im so glad you have written about this, Sarah. Thank you!
I didnt know that Churchill said that...good on the ol chap! Smart fellow.
I often think about this in terms of collapse...I think about my own work and what and how I might paint something...far more than actually doing it lately. Thats a task to be tackled, as it is only in the doing that the knot becomes undone.
For the person appreciating the Art...What else is there, other than the experience of an art work, that has the ability to dive into our psyche; to squeeze and massage an emotion, a memory, a line of thought?
Without Art in our world, there would be a fallow garden within us that would not be nourished or challenged or seeded.
We, the artists, are the canaries in the coal mine. Observing, listening, piecing together the patterns to SAY something coherent and create a pause. We say “look at this - don’t you feel it?”
Oh, yes. A compulsion for me, too. I honestly don't know what drives me, but it feels like it's been in me all my life and this moment allows it to come forth fully.
This chapter comes right as I've been reading of multiple universities defunding their humanities PhD programs, or even closing down humanities departments as a whole. The value of getting an advanced degree has been discussed here - whether it's even worth it or not. And yet I find it such a sign of the times when we cannot go to university in order to learn to think, which is essentially what a degree in humanities entails. Students are not learning to think for themselves, to truly look and learn, or even figure out how to converse with one another. They are merely going to university in order to puppet someone else.
So as the universities begin to crumble, not looking anything like what they were originally designed for, we will take our original ideas and put them toward making art nonetheless. And whether anyone sees it is perhaps besides the point, because the process of creating has taught us more than a degree ever could.
Coleman, I'm having similar discussions with others...In some ways the fact that universities are no longer places for this kind of creation and generation of ideas and innovation frees us to just get on with it anyway. I am grateful for my arts degree - it did, indeed, teach me to think. But I was also operating at a disadvantage because I was not wealthy...and I kind of feel that the crumbling of universities, like a lot of collapses, are required to level things ...
You write that, "Creatives must be afforded the space and permission to do their work at the uncomfortable edges."
-- the thing is, even if we're not 'afforded' the space and permission, we'll do it anyway -- because we can't NOT do it!
We are the edge-walkers, the outsiders. No change ever comes from the status quo, it's always from the edges and underbelly of society. And that's where the artists and seers live too...
--And it's where the best conversations happen too, like here :)
Ooh! I love the term edge-walker. That feels so descriptive of how I've always felt!
Yes
And do not forget what art actually is
It is the love making between ourselves and our human experience and the forces of darkness and light which move through us (or are us)
I do not get to write or paint much these days as I am too tight and time is also tight
But I do try to bring art into my home, my clothes, my bed, my sleep, my conversation, love making, work, and exercise
Everything is art as all is love
The purest art we can produce , is the purest form of ourselves which we dare to present
x
I think of it as a dance with the human experience!
Dance is a better word , still has the intimacy with oneself , the music (or silence) , the air the ground and the moment, and much more play 👌🏼
Thanks for this chapter, Sarah.
Like many of you, I’ve been thinking a lot about art / creativity in collapse.
I’ve struggled with perfectionism and it severely impacted my creativity or at least sharing my creativity with the world.
I often compare myself to the *best* of the best. And too often thought it wasn’t worth doing something if I wasn’t going to be amazing at it. Why? Where does that come from? Well, I suppose because our modern society has taught me that scale, visibility, monetization, accolades, etc are the measure of value when it comes to art.
Because of the industrialization and commodification of art and of creativity.
I’m reminding myself (and maybe finally believing) that I don’t need to be the best. I don’t need to be amazing. Or impressive. I don’t even need to be good - I just need to be true and connected.
In imagining a smaller, less globalized future, I’m hoping that will encourage people to lean in more deeply to their creativity and bring out more artists content with making for themselves and their immediate community.
I hope in the same way that there will be more community gardens, there are more community bands, galleries, theatre, etc etc
A band on every block! A mural down every lane way!
BRING ON THE ART ❤️
Seth Godin's words have helped with the quandary you describe. He says "real artists ship"...which is a very "marketing speak" way of saying, creatives just get it out there, they emit.
I agree - we are going to have be all kinds of creative and innovative in our own lives....but on a humble scale...like when we were kids.
x
I love this Sarah.
Art being the antithesis, creation as opposed to destruction.
My painting is my muse, my escape and my way of processing my frenetic life.
It brings me peace.
I therefore become peace and so do those closest to me.
I've only read the first couple paragraphs of this chapter but my god, it resonates!! It brings up two anecdotes from my life. The first being an article my dad send me today about how due to budget constraints, 3 new schools in our local school board will have pared down music programs, meaning they won't get funding for instruments. This is sad on the face of it alone, but as my dad, a retired music teacher himself, explained to me, kids in older grades often don't feel comfortable singing, which is likely why instrumental music is taught in those early teen years. So for kids who don't want to sing, they'll be left with a very poor music education. As someone who has gained much joy and confidence through music, this feels tragic.
The other thing I thought of is how my FIL is obsessed with AI and has been raving about how he can change pictures of his grandkids. For instance, don't like the background of a photo? Put the kid in an AI playground image. Photography will lose its soul this way, in my opinion. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was several years ago when my youngest was an infant and I asked him to print a photo of her for me, he edited out her prominent forehead birthmark. I was furious! I found it beyond insulting that he would feel the need to airbrush my infant daughter, like somehow already, she was yet another female the world viewed as lesser. Needless to say I told him I did not want his creepy edited photo. And this was just photo editing software, before AI really got its clutches on things.
I have some big feelings about this obviously! Lol
Gosh, that line from your dad - kids don't feel comfortable singing. Yes, but we do it anyway. It pains me when we allow kids' discomfort to dictate what they get to experience.
Well, I was the one who inferred the discomfort part. What my dad actually said was its hard to get grade 7s and 8s (13/14 year olds) to sing. I agree with you from an anxiety avoidance point of view, that we have to push through our discomfort. My point really was that different kids thrive in different ways and I think music and the arts in general is so vital to education and humanity that short changing kids' options for musical education is tragic. And as usual, it will be those already marginalized due to socioeconomic factors who will suffer most. Families with money can put their kids in private lessons but those without will, well go without...
I just wish I could get all the parents of the young people I teach art to, to read this so they can appreciate my subject is just as necessary as English and Maths. Although it’s never going to be seen as such. But I tell all my students humans were making art for just as long as they have been making language and doing (basic) maths…I’ve been doing a lot of tiny paintings lately and unconsciously most of them are nature images. I feel like I’ve been accidentally recording everything that is dear to me that we might lose.
Can you send it out with one of the standard emails? Don't teachers have to send 948529487 emails to parents each week?
Accidentally recording...I like this. I feel a little the same with writing.
I hear you. Until the media and systems in charge tell society so, English, maths and grades will take precedence. But keep doing what you’re doing, our children deserve to be allowed to be in spaces to be creative, to be curious and to make mistakes - and perhaps see that mistakes can be beautiful.
I resonate with your sense of what was being taken from the little girl, the opportunities being ripped away. Also the assumption that anything could ever mechanize the expression of love and admiration. My felt sense with AI is a kind of robbery. At our home there’s a rule that no one can help you into the tree. If you want to climb it, the work you’ll do to be able to get into it are the skills that will you keep you safe and on track as you go higher and higher.
Yes. It feels like a kind of murder that happens out in the open.
….. ‘But they hold’
Sometimes even barely by white knuckles but because we are adulting.
Being widened by grief and gratitude.
Are you referring here to the Francis Weller quote?
“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give."
Yes, as found in your ‘enshittificatiom’ writing notes post … love it 🔨
I read ‘stretched’ as widened …
A little poem of mine to share …
flow in the grimness of the stressed prickle
yes; take action as you must ... loose the arrow toward the target; even if and it does continually move, fade, ebb and flow from understanding and vision.
pause in the paralysis of the stressed prickle
yes; take space as you must
return to flow to the paradox of the impossible error
“Loose the arrow toward the target “ - I love this! Thank you
I love this Chapter and like so many of the Chapters; can stand alone as a book. I will revisit again but your " .. Art - reminds us of what it is to be human ...” is in synch with the video I have just listened to by Julia Butterfly Hill - the activist who lived in a tent near the top of a tree, affectionately known as Luna. In this video she returns on the 25th anniversary and is sobbing as she recognises in some ways she let go of her authentic self (her creative self too) https://www.instagram.com/julia_butterfly_hill_official/reel/DDiPweOPUot/. Gotta go and will come back Thanks!
Hmmm...looking at this torrent of responses, maybe there is a book to be made! <3
Dianne, was she the inspiration for Richard Powers character in Overstory?
I'm bawling my eyes out.
Oh, why? What caught your heart?
Hi Sarah - you write about AI and “how it denies a child the important creative act of representing their feelings out in the world, of reaching both inwards and outwards to communicate love and awe for their heroine.” I also wonder about the message we are sending our kids that their words aren’t good enough in the first place, and that they need to run their thoughts through an AI tool to “perfect” them before publishing. That sounds awful to me!! How will they learn to communicate authentically if they don’t practice??
Yes!!!! A horrible message. But we are getting this message, too. Our faces aren't good enough without AI filters...even nature is not beautiful enough. Have you noticed travel IG photos are now super surreal? It's just horrible
Oh, Im so glad you have written about this, Sarah. Thank you!
I didnt know that Churchill said that...good on the ol chap! Smart fellow.
I often think about this in terms of collapse...I think about my own work and what and how I might paint something...far more than actually doing it lately. Thats a task to be tackled, as it is only in the doing that the knot becomes undone.
For the person appreciating the Art...What else is there, other than the experience of an art work, that has the ability to dive into our psyche; to squeeze and massage an emotion, a memory, a line of thought?
Without Art in our world, there would be a fallow garden within us that would not be nourished or challenged or seeded.
Churchill was an artist as well.
He was bipolar - I think he definitely smelled the Zeitgeist
I had forgotten he was an artist...didnt know he was bipolar though! I need to read up on him!
Art gives order to chaos.
And the right kind of order!
Absolument.
We, the artists, are the canaries in the coal mine. Observing, listening, piecing together the patterns to SAY something coherent and create a pause. We say “look at this - don’t you feel it?”
It feels to me, more and more, like a compulsion.
Oh, yes. A compulsion for me, too. I honestly don't know what drives me, but it feels like it's been in me all my life and this moment allows it to come forth fully.
This chapter comes right as I've been reading of multiple universities defunding their humanities PhD programs, or even closing down humanities departments as a whole. The value of getting an advanced degree has been discussed here - whether it's even worth it or not. And yet I find it such a sign of the times when we cannot go to university in order to learn to think, which is essentially what a degree in humanities entails. Students are not learning to think for themselves, to truly look and learn, or even figure out how to converse with one another. They are merely going to university in order to puppet someone else.
So as the universities begin to crumble, not looking anything like what they were originally designed for, we will take our original ideas and put them toward making art nonetheless. And whether anyone sees it is perhaps besides the point, because the process of creating has taught us more than a degree ever could.
Coleman, I'm having similar discussions with others...In some ways the fact that universities are no longer places for this kind of creation and generation of ideas and innovation frees us to just get on with it anyway. I am grateful for my arts degree - it did, indeed, teach me to think. But I was also operating at a disadvantage because I was not wealthy...and I kind of feel that the crumbling of universities, like a lot of collapses, are required to level things ...
This is brilliant Sarah, eloquent, impassioned, beautifully expressed. Keep going! Xx
Thanks mate!