kradeelav | (no subject)

the quote about art and vietnam is going around in my head again.

“During the Vietnam War... every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.” ― Kurt Vonnegut

and i guess i've been mulling it over with the odd cocktail of thinking about artistic Purpose and how i'm much, much less ambitious than I ever was, at least in terms of blood sweat and tears of getting visibility to leverage art For Something. also about the general, uhhhh, existential fear? some artists have with AI, art as a social movement, art as a tool for Bettering Da World, you know, heavy stuff like that.

artists like a snappy one-sentence Purpose with their art. totally okay, sometimes it helps to focus people, whether it's technically or emotionally. sometimes it's just a useful tool to get into galleries. sometimes they for real Believe in art's capability to better the world. sometimes they honest to god believe in their One Massive Story to tell and it's enough to drive them for a lifetime, and that's really cool too. goodness knows i love reading those stories.

personally, i got real disillusioned with art-as-a-social-good/purpose sometime in the last 5 years. in the sense of 'i do more tangible good for other people and the world by being physically there and being kind to people, by being a manager that protects my people and/or doesn't suck (low bar, that), and ensuring my "actions' ripple out with warmth.' woo shit like that. like, i could honestly die tomorrow, and i'd have no regrets living with this philosophy even though it's comparatively really... airquotes ""simple"".

sometimes i feel like it's shoved at people that art must always be For Something Bigger. shoved at people until everyone feels guilty if they don't have that squeaky clean 'i justify spending this much time scribblnig because i'm doing Good' excuse. maybe that's art school talking. maybe it's this frankenstein corporatized, capitalized idea of trying to better the world with a fundementally tainted tool (who's paying you?). maybe it's in light of a lot of fandom-adjacent drama with creative people trying to balance other people's unrealistic ideas of Doing Good with something that's ultimately a guilty pleasure. it rings a little hollow when it both (a) doesn't speak to you, and (b) you've seen how twisted that path's gotten, with people outright wielding passion of art as a weapon on others for the sake of "good".

~~(what if i don't trust anyone's idea of good, these days. what if i just want to exist. and draw.)~~

but also,

sometime's it's truly okay to say 'god put me on this planet earth to draw one (1) beautiful bishie' for 30+ years and be genuinely content with Just That, without the reflexive guilt.

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sodium_amytal

(what if i don't trust anyone's idea of good, these days. what if i just want to exist. and draw.)

but also,

sometime's it's truly okay to say 'god put me on this planet earth to draw one (1) beautiful bishie' for 30+ years and be genuinely content with Just That, without the reflexive guilt.
This!!!!

kradeelav

sometimes saying the quiet part out loud truly does help ease up on that inner tension. <3 gotta make sure the mind doesn't cramp - here's to freer creatin' for both of us!

neotula

interesting to see your thoughts on this sorta topic! i find myself thinking on why i create fairly often. i think for me with writing, the current conclusion is that it's largely to express emotion/ideas, to make a thought as physical as i can. the way to make something feel the most real is to write it.

i spent enough years very very bad at both writing and drawing that i was forced to become aware of how bad I was at both. it kinda purged any sort of idealism from my creativity, and i ended up more selfish with what I made and why I made it. i had to be, because i was bad at it, lol. i had to really want to make something to make it, so i was selfish.

i guess i don’t really want to make any sort of moral good with my art, but if i was to be idealistic about it it’s just nice to be understood, even if it’s by two and a half randos on ao3 or whatever.

i unironically love that you used the word 'selfish' -- thought about it as well, but you're exactly right in that creating for yourself is exactly the kind of space where we *need* to be selfish in that sense, to create things that are painfully honest.

s'fun to create for others at times (look at both of us joining all kinds of exchanges), but when it comes to that painful vulnerability and having to get over the hurdle of how it's percieved - absolutely.

'even if it's by two and a half randos on ao3' hear, hear!

ellerean

I've been thinking a lot about why we all create, what's the point, etc. I print manga for a living. It's not exactly groundbreaking. But it brings people joy, and maybe that's enough of a reason.

I love how you've stuck to your roots all this time. I've seen so many artists who "improve" but lose their own style. I'm very hesitant about my writing skills and think no one will care, but someone once told me I can't be the only person who likes the thing I want to write. So just do it. I've appreciated 30 years of beautiful bishie, so yes, keep being you.

goodness yes, we've probably seen and might even agree on those artists/creatives that have just ... drifted. i wish them peace and happiness, but, it's wild how sometimes the old crufty deviantart styles had a lot of soul to them.

'just do it' is fabulous advice too. :)

(by the way - I think it is so cool that you've worked your way up to printing manga at your current role. smol!quasi, i know beyond a shadow of a doubt, would think you're extremely cool for that. hell, smol!krad would too. :> )

vsitante

Man, that quote sure is sobering in this day and age...:')

(and because we are on the internet, the above is said with no sarcastic intent!)

I feel this entry a lot. I remember having a discussion last year on how we could get our art to people nowadays because of the way sites like twitter have made it so that the algo hates us and we can't find that which the algo doesn't like. And also, in general, being annoyed that sites will hide things because it's not "to their liking." Got told quite freshly by one person to "just make fanart of popular things lol"

And like. That to me was anger-inducing. For many reasons but the primary one was "but I want to make things *I* like and things that I know other people would like to see that someone makes, it's just a little hard?" Why...why would I try to do art I don't want to do, of things I may or may not like, just so I can get more internet algo points?

The sad thing is, that person is proven right by how the internet works (and of course how fandom works, existing IPs are more recognizable than original, yadda yadda) I don't necessarily blame them so much as...I don't know why that person didn't consider the fact that a lot of us make art we want to do because we want to do it and not for a fleeting moment of ethereal fandom points. (And the fact that my frustration was also with the cards stacked against original works and non-fannish related works, but that's another can of worms.) Sure, the fandom points are nice when you find people who love your fanworks and stick around but wouldn't it be nice if it were due to GENUINE* MAKING OF THE FAN ART instead?! And not just for the hustle?!

(*Genuine is subjective, but I said what I said XD)

I don't know (shrugs emoji) Maybe I'm still too stuck on the idea of "I do what I want, even if it means I get nothing, I suppose" because at the end of the day, I got nothing else and I already spent a good chunk of my adolescence being that way. So. I am an old dog who's sticking to old tricks, I guess.

not me thinking I wrote a short reply and instead I clearly fell sickness to my lengthy need. oops

lukadian

Never before have I related so hard with an occurrence of the exact same problem I have being a wordy mofo in the wild. XD

XD I often joke that I end up writing novels no matter what or where!

*hear hear* to absolutely everything that you said. it's such a hard lesson for artists who grew up online (both encompassing our generation(s) and the zoomers) to learn there's a subtle, lethal kind of draining when a creative isn't drawing from the personal wellspring that refreshes you. very easy to stumble into an emotional burnout, and i am very proud of you for recognizing that.

(that said, i wonder if one of the silver lining to the whole AI kerfuffle is that eventually artwork online will arc "back" more into original and personally loved works. because now that everyone can render fandom shit at a blink of an eye, there's nothing special about it. thoughts to consider.

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