#creating art

[markmcole]

What Was I Made For? What's My Purpose?

Have you ever wondered, “Why am I here?” or “What am I supposed to do with my life?” These are some of the most profound questions we can ask. Across cultures and centuries, people have searched for purpose and meaning. For those who look to the Bible for answers, there’s good news: Scripture offers a clear and inspiring vision for why we exist. Created on Purpose, for a Purpose The Bible’s…

[env0writes]

A Feud to Carry Vol. 2, 2.2.24 “Do it for the Doing"

Art for artists Get your start, this Eat your heart out; wish You’d make something, phish For compliments, Condiments Accoutrements Make something novel Make something, grovel Beg, barter, or bleed Work at every word, knead The dough it won’t rake in It isn’t enough to cross the finish line to win Art made for artists Is the hardest, to make The gentry are not gentle to this Subtleties and difficulties, they miss Effortlessly and with grace Each obstacle you face Passed with ease Painted over easel And easily If only your parents were so easily impressed Investors, addressed Buyers, amassed It isn’t even enough to just do it one handed, backwards, and blindfolded It isn’t enough just to do it well …for fun …for you …at all Even as you lay dying, it will never be enough No matter how many words, rhythms, brushstrokes, sculpted lines Completion is not the goal Of this process

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artist!   Photo by @mynamemeanscloud

[aucris]

Art means releasing the Chaos from our souls to an empty space where it can grow.

[lowdown0]

Stay True to Your Art and Not the Trends

Writing as an art provides valuable expression for society. Photo by Jalen Hueser on Unsplash While everyone has different reasons for writing, true artists shouldn’t write what others want. Some say, “Write what people want to read according to the trends,” which might expedite making money, yet isn’t a true artistic expression. What Art Is Art is an expression the artist wants others to…

[junkjournalwithtoomuchtime]

Today I learned how to crochet a granny square

I’ve already started a second and now I need to figure out the best way to block the pieces so it becomes an actual square and not one that resembles a kindergartener’s drawing

but I don’t really want to spend a bunch of money on a blocking board so I think I will go to the dollar store and buy a peg board square and use that instead

I know I can also use a box but I want to get rid of “messy” clutter and when I’m not using the board as a blocking board, I can also use it as a peg board (which I want to get anyway)

[itsawritblr]

Non-writer: "I could write a book."

Writer:

[canideadmeow]

the urge to kms is so real but I don't have the guts and then who'll read all those books that I bought and the ones i still have to buy? who'll listen to all those goofy ass songs and the comforting ones too, who'll love music like i do? who'll listen to all those podcasts?? and what about the good food ???? who'll make art or appreciate nature or read poetry or be happy about all the little things???? and WHAT ABOUT COFFEE??? I can't betray all these things....and so I continue to live :3

and so should y'all :D

[nitzeart]

Process for this DTIYS! I had so much fun and love the character's design 🤗

Congratulations to @ carolemellow on reaching 100k! I only discovered her a few months ago, but she's quickly become one of my favorite illustrators/artists today 🩷

[tears-that-heal]

Sometimes when certain inspirations struck your mind and you’re able to run with it. GO FOR IT!!!!! *spontaneous creative me time* So Needed it. 😌

☺️💕🎨

[slurmpinheimer]

Calling all artists, I need you to answer a question for me. I’ve noticed that after I finish a piece of art (physical or digital, writing or painting or crochet or anything) I just fuckin stare at it for a while. I think it might be my favorite part of the whole process.

For example—I wrote almost 6k words in the span of 7hrs~ last night, finally finishing at 2am. Then, I just kept reading it. Over and over again. I corrected a few spelling mistakes and edited some things, but I mostly just read it. I kept doing that until I realized it was 3:30am and my bitchass had to work today, so I finally went to bed around then. Even today at work I read it like 5 times over. I can’t be the only person who does this, right? I’m just so entranced by the idea of creating something, it acts like a magnet.

Maybe it’s because I’ve become so numb from constant media intake, and so reading my own shit is mind blowing to me. not sure. But I just want to know if others are out there pumping theyself up because you should!!! creating art is so cool!!!

[comfortableinthesilence]

So last few days I've been seeing tiktoks where people use plaster/filler to make textured art and well I had to go the hardware shop anyway today so I picked up some supplies! So I'm spending my Saturday night watching movies and making art. I don't know how they'll turn out, if it's a waste of time but I've been wanting to try new art mediums and plus I need to get back to making art for the fun of it. Sod if I make mistakes or fuck ups, it's about creating art for me and that's what matters!

Might share the outcome, I'll see!

[sullina]

I think i just realized something about artists and the art that they create. Not sure if it's gonne be coherent, but I'm gonna do my best. It might come off as a little pretentious towards the end.

because really good art (can be anything, but always seems to have a special something about it) often seems to be created by people who are at least a little weird

and I think it's precisely because they're weird that they can create good art

because if you're weird, you're pretty much forced to analyse the world we live in in order to realize that you're different, because if you don't do that, you pretty much become super depressed, you're gonna think that everyone just hates you for no reason other than because you're you.

which doesn't change all that much once you realize that you're not normal, but realizing that you are different, that you're not normal, brings a certain confidence with it, I think. the "blame" of why you can't get along with others shifts from "you're doing something wrong that makes everyone hate you" to "they're the ones antagonizing you solely because you're not like them, you did nothing wrong" (I'm exaggerating, but you get the point)

And once you realize that, I think most people who are weird more or less start analysing what exactly makes them different from the normal people and gain a deeper understanding for how the world and how people work, in a way.

And a lot of art involves intentionally depicting the real world, be that in pictures, in stories, etc. and i feel like people who are weird can just do that better, because they have to analyse how the world works and the different reciprocal effects of it, but also how the world is.

It feels more real, because it's a less superficial depiction.

If i were to reword this post, maybe something like this would work better:

A less experienced author who has chosen a setting will throw in elements of that setting, because that's what that setting has in real life (or in other stories with the same setting)

A more experienced author with the same setting will chose the elements they use more carefully, picking what will work for the story and what isn't needed, how they can use each element and make it work for the plot and the characters they have in mind.

Think of it like the famous example of the blue curtains. In a book, where you have no visual representation of a room, only what the author gives you, you get the color of curtains. If the author has some experience, they're likely telling you more than just the color of the curtains. Why were they blue? Why not any other color? Why tell you about the curtains at all, if it's not important in some way or another? It doesn't have to be a big revelation, but it should tell you something about the plot or the character.

Maybe the curtains were red before, and they were changed between then and now. Maybe blue is someones favourite color, so when something else they have is not blue, in this story where any object can be made blue, it is something to look out for. Maybe it's a red herring.

In other words, the blue curtains in a book aren't a throwaway line, they're a detail that the author is intentionally telling you about.

The author who wrote that line thought "they're in a room with a window, so there's probably curtains there" and went "the curtains and their color is a detail important enough to tell the reader even though in real life, curtains are rather insignificant" and that's what I meant when i said that weird people are better at creating good art that normal people, because normal people likely never had to examine the status quo, but weird people do.

[ana-cantskywalker]

I saw a post once that said because Taylor Swift was a successful white woman she (and I'm paraphrasing here) couldn't have experienced real struggle and hurt which therefore meant she couldn't make genuine and good art (and like yes, racism and poverty, the only two types of human suffering apparently, but that's another post)

This post isn't about her, but it did get me thinking. Is art made from pain really the only art that's worthwhile?

(Forewarning, this will probably get very rambley, and when I talk about art here, that includes all types of art, music, paintings, sculpting, books, movies, poems, etc)

As someone who often uses the creation of art to cope with hurts, and as someone who has experienced wonderful things that were inspired by pain, I realize the value and beauty found in art created from pain. Grief and bitterness and anger and hopelessness are all parts of the human experience. Tragedy is such a heartbreakingly beautiful story every time it's told, and some of the best pieces of art ever made were inspired by the woes of life.

That said, is art inspired by other things less valuable? Can we really say that only art created from pain is good art? Is art inspired by joy and love and the beauty of life not to be taken seriously because it doesn't deal with heavy topics like loss? They are also apart of the human experience, just as if not more vital than pain. The tears you cry from laughter are just as valuable as the ones you cry from grief. Just because art is not about suffering doesn't make it shallow.

I feel like this might be a non-issue, but I also feel like a lot of artists are made to feel like their work isn't worthwhile if it isn't inspired by some horrid tragedy. This really doesn't get my point across the way I wanted it to, but I don't have the words to explain it any differently

[hellogirlslikegirlslikeboysdo]

And the lights are not fluorescent, and there are no words on the page. - Zuihitsu/Hybrid Essay

Author's Preface and Ch. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7

Description: My final portfolio for one of the creative writing courses I took based around exploring the creative nonfiction essay in its many literary forms, with any and all identifying names or signifiers censored out.

This essay may not actually, in the most technical sense available, “pass” as a submission to the “Essay 3: Zuihitsu/ Hybrid” assignment.

If you are interested in financial compensation for your loss, feel free to contact us at 1-800-THIS-AUTHOR-IS-PHYSICALLY-ALLERGIC-TO-UNDERSTANDING-BASIC-DIRECTIONS. We are taking the time and liberty to inform you of this upcoming inconvenience not only as a hook for the first line of this essay, nor to plead “ignorance of the literary law” during its grading process, but rather to provide a reference point based in where said essay is coming from, and where it plans on going for the remainder of its duration.

As we’re sure you’ve found in your time as an academic instructor working at [REDACTED], [REDACTED]’s famous claim of a “gradeless” curriculum in the traditional sense (ie. a lack of letters or percentiles) may hold up in the previously mentioned technical sense (excluding the GPA our final evaluations get translated into during the grad school application process), however, most of the expectations and requirements professors hold in their classrooms act as a sort of “pass/fail” grading system anyway, though the unique teaching philosophy shared amongst them and facility tends to inspire only two genuine points of grading criteria: “Is the assignment complete in provable effort and its entirety?” and “Does it follow the awarded instructions?”

After countless scouring on the internet, our class notes, the description and examples left in the Canvas page, and our memory of class the day you explained it, we have come to the dreaded conclusion that this essay may not fit the second criterion.

Our continued rough drafting is committed, rather, to the hope that our confusion on the nature of the hybrid essay, the actual difference between Zuihitsu poetry vs Zuihitsu essay writing, the necessity of following a particular theme or idea throughout, the assigned process behind this essay, each supposed segment’s expected length or whether this portion’s subject matter qualifies it as an actual part of the essay, or even the correct way to separate each section, will somehow act in the spirit of Zuihitsu literature: Following the pen wherever it leads you.

Wish us luck, dear reader.

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I found the same kind of fun in the animal diary that I find in all our in-class hands-on work: Obvious, self-explanatory, and buried deep within the depths of the most artistic/freeform aspect of the activity. Like clockwork, it requires me to brush away the specks of uncertainty in the directions, my withered hands revealing the big, bright label plastered on top.

It reads exactly how you imagine it reads: “See!! See, look, I told you I was here! You were so focused on making sure this assignment helped you towards your next essay, you thought you wouldn’t have room for me, but here I am, idiot! You’re having a good goddamn time drawing a funky little platypus, and it’s all thanks to me! Leave your thank you on the way out, ya dumb bitch!”

Apart from the question of why this metaphor requires a labeling gun with such long stickers, one has to wonder what disgusting alleyway all that distracting stress crawled out of. The supposed safety net of my professors, generally speaking, knowing what exactly they’re doing (those PHDs don’t exactly just pop into existence one day) does quite little to sway this approach to learning in all its hypervigilance. I’ve posited many theories over the years, tangentially and never allowing myself the time for a full conclusion; It could be the looming threat of how little time I have to devote to brainstorming how to attack my assignments, maybe the unshakable internal insistence (blame capitalism or the public schooling for that, either’s a fine scapegoat and the “why” is too abstract to help me in the middle of class) that learning has to be productive towards a traceable later goal, instead of myself as a whole and an academic (if I have nothing tangible to show for my efforts, how can I be sure I even followed the directions correctly?).

The most troubling option, embarrassing as it is for someone who claims to prioritize her career as a writer above all else, is that I’m simply trying to justify using the skills and techniques as they are given to me, in hopes that the results they wield in class are shiny enough for me to actually use them outside of the class.

I do wonder if I took the animal diary this seriously when I first encountered it. My memory flickers under the winds of time, but I’m leaning towards no.

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It does, of course, come to my attention what asking for clarification on the instructions could do, but the things classification has done in the past (make just as little sense as before, confuse me further, led my mind even farther from the intended understanding, you know the drill) brushes the thought away.

Years of fractured, sprawled-out education has taught me my best approach for tasks I’m not fully sure about is to set my concerns aside and simply go with what I think is best, consequences be damned!

(And by damned, I mean, as I’m sure you guessed, professionally dealt with at a later date.)

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Maybe the apologetic, justifying tone gives me away, maybe it's the heavy overarching theme in this freeform-style essay, but I should confess that my current thoughts are mixed in the way they always are. Half are swirling around the task at hand and what little attention I can pay to it (as always). The other half is on what I really wish I was writing (ie. what I am always thinking about, somewhere, way in the back): Whatever nonsense my brain has deemed flashy enough to name my current hyperfixation (The Stanley Parable at the moment I’m writing this, though I’m sure it’ll have changed by the time I come back to edit this).

That latter half, of course, brings me to the conundrum I’ve left out to dry ever since I labeled myself a writer. I want to spend this entire essay rambling on about this stupid little video game, and its two stupid little main characters, and the actually brilliant way they need each other more than the narrative itself needs them in one blog-style expository essay, well underneath 750 words. But that just won’t work, in the same way that what I wish I was writing even more than that (fiction, prose in particular) won’t work either. In the simplest of terms, that’s not what this assignment is about. And in order to actually learn, to grow as a writer, I can’t just write what I want to. I have to write what I need to.

[honeycombvinyl]

2023/12/11

Officially decided today that I'm going to try to get back into painting over the holidays! It's been four years since I last created any art and it's definitely been hurting me. I'm so inspired, have a ton of ideas, and I'm so excited to start again <3