Art for Art's Sake

If I’m being completely honest, “art for art’s sake” was never something I subscribed to prior to the pandemic. But, as this moment in time becomes more and more strange and, frankly, painful, I’ve had to reevaluate what it means to be an Artist and embrace the possibility of creating art for art’s sake.

Several weeks ago, I shared a blog post with my definition of “an Artist”. 

An Artist is someone who renders the human experience.

In my unconscious mind I suppose I had added in an ellipsis: 

…and then, delivers that rendering to an audience.

For the last 6 months, I’ve been facilitating a weekly space for Artists called… C.R.E.A.T.E.: Creative Resilient Eager Artists Totally Experimenting. In this space, I give the Artists a set of prompts, I set the timer for 60 minutes, and off they go to make something brand new. At the end of the hour, some of the Artists share the pieces they have just created. Some of them don’t. In both cases, these Artists are healing themselves by making something, by creating, by rendering their human experience.  I am so grateful to these Artists for helping me see the truth about art for art’s sake: to live without art is really not to live at all.

We must express ourselves. We must take the experience of being human and turn it into something. It helps us to make sense of the world. It helps us to make sense of each other. It helps us to make sense of ourselves.

If you are an Artist and you are feeling stuck right now, consider creating art for art’s sake. To render your human experience is a worthwhile and necessary practice, whether or not the work is delivered to an audience. This could look like journaling. This could look like sketching, this could look like baking, singing, dancing, taking a photo. This could look like a million different things. You are the Artist. You get to decide.

Let us follow the immortal words of the late Carrie Fisher: Take your broken heart, make it into art.