More Than Fun — David DuChemin

ABA Episode 079 Album Art — EPISODE 079: MORE THAN FUN

Isn't art-making and creativity meant to be fun? Why is it so often a source of struggle than anything a sane person would call fun? And are the challenges worth it? Or is there something bigger at play here, something more than fun? I have this feeling we create because we must, because it's part of who we are, and that we do it because it's hard. Because that's where flow, transformation, and meaning are to be found, or created. Let's talk about it.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

"Isn't this supposed to be fun," she asked me? "Why does it always seem like there's so much struggle in our creative lives?" I was doing an interview with painter and mixed-media artist, Kerry Schroeder, and the tongue-in-cheek question struck me because while I've often been asked about dealing with the daily struggle, I like the rare curiosity and sensitivity that would ask why it must be so hard, or even to take one further step back and ask, in fact, must it be hard? Must the creative life be a struggle? And if that struggle is inevitable, where's the payoff? Why do we keep subjecting ourselves to this when we could all be doing something so much easier, so much more...fun with our time? And are the upsides of the creative life worth struggling through the what feels at times like the many downsides?

I'm David duChemin and this is episode 79 of A Beautiful Anarchy, a podcast about the challenges and joys of everyday creativity; let's talk about it.

So let's get this one out of the way right at the beginning: I don't think anyone pursues their art-making because it's "fun". There are many reasons we make art, and yours might be different from mine, but fun?

Fun is a game of Twister when we've all had too much to drink. Fun is laughter and amusement, a word that very literally means "to not think." Don't misunderstand me. I love fun. I was a comedian for over a decade and I hold laughter as something nearly sacred, and yes, there are moments when art-making can be fun. But I don't think that's why we do it.

I think we do it because it gives us meaning. Because it challenges us. I think we do it because when it's going well and we're in a state of flow we feel like we're part of something bigger, or we forget ourselves entirely. Time moves differently, and we too are moved differently, and to different places. Transported, some have said. And certainly, at times, transformed.

There is a sense of joy and accomplishment, of discovery and meaning, that is so much bigger than fun. And that comes because of the challenges of making art and being an art-maker, not despite them.

I don't think we make or create because it's fun, but because we're hard-wired to do so. I think there is an inner compulsion to build, to transform, to express, and to leave our mark and say I was here. I think there's something innate, some primal instinct within us, to make. Make homes, make families, make tools, and instruments. To make love, to make war, to make changes, to make a way where this none, and to make meaning, significance, and (in those moments we manage to shine) to make something beautiful from out of what so often looks like wreckage.

So if we are makers. If it's our nature to create, and if this is what we do, why does it not come more easily? Why is it so hard?

It's hard because what we're doing is something we've never done before. Not in this way. In the context of creativity, what we do is uncertain, and humans have always had an uneasy relationship with what is unknown. We're dogged by doubts, frequented by fears. Will this work out the way I hoped? Will getting to that finished thing require more of me than I have, and force me to become more than I am right now? Will it be received by those for whom I make it? Will it be understood? These are questions we can only ever answer in the making, on the other side of the process. So walking into it, on the near side of the process, is walking into the unknown.

I think it's hard because not only is it unknown, but because it matters. Art-making is always personal. I think that's one of the things that makes it art, we put ourselves into it, and the more we do that, the more vulnerable we feel. Vulnerability is hard. When we make something and put it into the world we lay ourselves bare. We open ourselves to criticism, and even when that criticism is directed to our work and not to us, we'd have to be super-human not to take it personally, not to internalize what feels like a failure of what we've made as a failure of ourselves. The more important your art-making, the higher the stakes; and all the joys and mountain tops of creating don't exclude the very real fear of the valleys we experience when things don't go so well.

I think we do it because it's hard. Some people climb mountains, some people write poems or chip away at unseen angels in blocks of marble. We do it because we're not sure we can. We do it because we want to discover not only what the angel looks like, but whether she's in there at all. When asked if he knew what his paintings would look like before he painted them, Picasso replied, "Oh course not, if I already knew that, I wouldn't need to paint them." We thrive on challenge. If we didn't, we'd be happy with our plateaus, content to repeat the same thing over and over again. The truly unhappy creator is not the one being challenged and wrestling through the process, the tools, and the materials. It's not the one worried how it'll turn out. And it's not the creator who isn't having fun: it's the one who is bored and lacking challenge.

Challenge is necessary for flow. Flow is necessary to draw us forward into greater complexity. It is flow and what we learn during flow that makes us the artist that could not, until now, have created what is currently in front of us. Challenge and the flow that comes when we bring all our skills to bear on that new problem, is part of what gives us meaning. The sign of the artist at work is more often the furrowed brow than it is the carefree grin or whatever gives us away when we're having fun.

So in light of that—and I can only speak from what I know and have experienced or heard from others—"fun" is too small a thing to hope for from our work. There is something so much bigger. That doesn't mean there aren't moments of exhilaration, joy, or some ineffable satisfaction. It doesn't discount the moments of laughter that come when the tension breaks as we figure out some next piece of the puzzle. But it might mean we need to run headlong into the challenge for all that it brings us, even to celebrate it for the people it never ceases to mold us into, rather than bemoaning it. This is not angst. It isn't brooding. Those things are far too self-aware, far too much like "woe is me", and maybe even self-importance—which is hard to avoid without also letting go of the hope that what do—what we make and that we make it—IS important.

That, too, makes our creative work a struggle: it's not easy to accept that what we do matters and to live in the inevitable tension between resorting to self-deprecation—on one hand— and becoming precious about what we do, on the other. That tension creates a high-wire that we don't always walk gracefully, nor from which we never fall to one side or the other. Even that is hard. It's easy to see why we might now and then wonder why this isn't more fun.

So, I'm not sure I've answered the questions I asked at the top of the episode to my satisfaction, or even to yours. Some questions, like these, are more important because they are asked than that they are answered with anything very specific. I think we'd stop our art-making entirely if, in the making, there was no promise of meaning, discovery, and transformation. If it all came so easily that it was free from challenge and struggle. If there were no friction, or so little to push against that our creative muscles started to atrophy and our minds turned to mush. The pushing makes us stronger with the struggles that require strength, and more creative with the challenges that require different approaches and new ways of thinking. Both of which make us more equal to the task. There's meaning in that. And hope too. Hope that as we move through life and we make of all the many hard things, ugly things, and dark things, and things that haven't yet been dreamed of—hope that we are becoming the kind of people equipped to make of those things, not something that is only fun, but something meaningful, and yes, something beautiful.

Music in this episode: Acid Jazz (Kevin Macleod) / CC BY-SA 3.0