I’ve gone through phases with this. Vince and I made the website insert credit because it didn’t exist and wrote things that other people weren’t doing at the time. Now, there are about 1000 insert credits all across the world with blogs, twitter accounts, and entire websites dedicated to obscurities. with insert credit, I felt that making money on it would cheapen what we were doing.
Now, I’m the opposite. I really can’t find the space to do anything artistic (or which is based on the knowledge I’ve gathered) unless it pays or has some sort of career-related drive behind it, unless I’m helping someone out who’s less far along their career path than I am. I don’t know if it’s healthy or whatever but just saying art for the sake of work is also a valid way to go.
These days, I don’t think I’d ever consider creating art for art’s sake. There’s almost nothing I’ve written that I haven’t published or somehow “exploited” to try to get some tangible thing out of it. If I got rich, would I just stop? I’m not sure, I think that’d change the paradigm. But it might be different because “art” or at least creative work is what I do for a job, and it’s the only thing I do for a job. So it’s not what I do in my spare time, in my spare time I consume things, fix broken pipes, play with my dog, that kinda stuff.
The reason we all continue to do insert credit is because it’s basically the only time we get to talk to each other. tim does it without getting paid! but I think that if frank and jaffe and I weren’t getting paid we might not be doing it still. If that makes sense! It’s enjoyable, but the financial aspect is a non-zero factor.
So I’m just saying you don’t 100% have to be high minded about art, or do it for art’s sake, or feel like you’re fulfilling a grand vision. you can just do it because it’s work, or because it’s therapeutic, or because you wanna see gex and the geico gecko 69-ing, or you can leave art alone for a while if it’s not doing anything for you.
As for why YOU should create art, I think:
- it’s okay to let go and not create art if you’re not feeling it. it might come back around
- if you need a reason, heck, open commissions or something
- ultimately, if it’s not fun, either don’t do it, or find a way to make it fun - find the part of it that’s fun and focus on that
And if you need general inspiration you can pretend that the computer voice in this track is saying Andy B
