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Why do you create?
9 years ago
I know this is an art-101 type question but it interests me. What drives others to create?
For me it's a desire to change the world. I believe we do this when we create works of art. Each are a glimpse of another world, another way of being. That holds real power. As artists, we can strip away constructs like race, gender, and age or talk about them in abstracted ways. We can inspire others. Make them smile, laugh, feel aroused, experience the pain of another, see things in new ways.
Writing, music, mathematics, dance, even things like cooking can all express who we are inside and touch others in the world in ways that profoundly change their lives. For me, to create is to love the world and myself. I can't be a passive consumer in the world. I am driven to make and do.
Of course, I also get full of my own ego. Hung up on my personal ideals. I fail to see the reasons others might have. Imagine others have the same goals as me. So, rather than speculate, I ask.
For me it's a desire to change the world. I believe we do this when we create works of art. Each are a glimpse of another world, another way of being. That holds real power. As artists, we can strip away constructs like race, gender, and age or talk about them in abstracted ways. We can inspire others. Make them smile, laugh, feel aroused, experience the pain of another, see things in new ways.
Writing, music, mathematics, dance, even things like cooking can all express who we are inside and touch others in the world in ways that profoundly change their lives. For me, to create is to love the world and myself. I can't be a passive consumer in the world. I am driven to make and do.
Of course, I also get full of my own ego. Hung up on my personal ideals. I fail to see the reasons others might have. Imagine others have the same goals as me. So, rather than speculate, I ask.
also because its like the whole point of being the species we are, the only thing that really makes us anything anything else isn't or isn't as much.
its because the things i want to see, the things i want to look at, there just aren't that many people doing, the combination of aspects of that i like to see.
there are many who do a whole lot better then i do some parts of it, but hardly anybody does the particular combination vary often.
If it's art (drawing stuff), then it's just something that came to mind or something I see in my head that I want to give to image. If it's music, it's just sounds that run around in my brain that I love to re-create (or try to) and see what I can build with it. If it's writing, then it's just my imagination and words are my paintbrush, the blank page the canvas, and I'm just painting pictures. I... kinda don't care if anyone likes it or not. I mean, that's not why I do anything (to please someone else). However, if someone DOES like anything I do, then I am amazed and awed and astounded and very happy. Bringin the sunshine to someone's day is always awesome.
I think if my life were somewhat different, I'd still draw a lot, but might not post so much. I really enjoy the movement aspect of things, and when I'm drawing to study stuff, there's this aspect of learning both about how to draw and about whatever I'm drawing. Obviously I do a lot of drawing as escapism, though I don't feel I'm good enough at drawing backgrounds (and I really like drawing characters!) to really capture other places I wish I were now. One of the weird things is that drawing fantasy topics sometimes has kind of another layer of escapism to me - because it's stuff I'd like to have happen in a D&D game, I'm also sort of imagining how cool it would be to have a regular D&D game again with stuff like that.
I like the idea of making things for other people too, maybe making people a little happier. This doesn't happen all the time, but when doing art for other people is really good it's way better than anything I'd ever do just for myself, because it combines how I work with an initial idea which I might not have had myself.
Posting stuff is a little like that - I really want to make people happier, and there's an ego component wanting compliments and praise, and there's also the feeling that y'know, the internet is full of angry people and one more isn't really unusual. Making something, putting it out there, that's a lot more proactive and unusual. There's the feeling of a time constraint too, I tend to be so scared of being homeless that maybe these are the last months I'll be able to post stuff. And last having online stuff serves as an archive in the most literal sense; I don't know if I might lose art (or simply have it lost in boxes) after moving, so if it's online I have a way to go back and look at my old stuff.