Creative Energy

I felt like I was at war with my own art for so long. My journey with it has been rocky and non-linear, full of barriers (self-imposed and otherwise), with more sure to come. But it has also been deeply personal and highly driven the entire time.

The main thing that helped push past it was not the decision but the true acceptance that my art is self-indulgence. Purely self-indulgent. Be it a silly, childish fanart, or an incredibly intimate self-portrait or poem. They are for me, by me, to me. With that, I stopped being so hard on myself on things like tangible progress and the “correct” ways to do art, whatever I thought that meant. Nowadays, it’s a lot more about the process than the result, and I have seen a great amount of progress – if not in technique, at least in expression.

So, why am I thinking about it now?

I was watching a YouTube art video, where the artist was drawing a new album cover for an old vinyl. He struggled to connect with it, because although he loved the album, the music was nihilistic, sad, and heavy. He said he does not get “creative energy” from these sorts of feelings.

I hadn’t, before then, thought much about the why of specific artworks of mine. I usually paint something because I get the urge to, and painting itself is the process of thinking through – I don’t sit down to express a fully thought-out emotion or insight, it happens organically through it, and the thoughts don’t stop evolving once it is done; I might rethink and reinterpret them forever, every time I glance at it.

I consider myself to be an inconsistent artist. Or versatile, whatever you prefer to call it. I don’t have a defined aesthetic or style; I don’t align with specific themes or moods. I do a bit of everything. However, the heavier artworks stick out to people a lot more, and I found, to my great confusion at first and frustration lately, that people generalize my art to be angsty and dark. They overlook silly doodles and happy portraits or warm landscapes and only think of the blood and sadness. I don’t blame anyone for that, of course, I’ve often discussed the common phenomenon in the human mind that means we like to highlight the negatives way more than the positives. But it did get me thinking about why I (not exclusively, but often) paint and write disconcertingly.

And I do believe that “disconcerting” is a good word to use, too, rather than ‘edgy’ or ‘sad’. Other words I’ve heard as descriptors that for some reason filled me with pride were “raw”, “unflinching”, “intimate”, and “melancholic”. So, are those the feelings I get my “creative energy” from?

I’ve overthought this a lot. Is it harder for me to depict and capture my own happy feelings, or do I simply feel happy less often? Is it because happy feelings have other healthy, more extroverted outlets that I express elsewhere, leaving introspective art to be my relief from the negative ones? Is ‘creative energy’ not really a thing and I should stop worrying about it?!

For a while, I was frustrated that I had not reached an answer. I am a bit obsessed with analysis and definitions and perceptions. As I write this, however, my conclusion is that it doesn’t really matter. It is good to reflect on creativity and my own relationship with it, but I am so glad to no longer be at war with my art that I don’t mind what the answer is; I’m okay with it, it’s self-indulgent regardless. Maybe it’s okay to not think that deeply about it for once, and simply paint what I feel like painting, whenever I feel like painting it, to write whenever I get the urge to. It’s okay to notice patterns, and simply let them go by, like cloud-watching. It’s okay to not know what everything means, heck, it’s okay to just be an edgy artist too, if that’s all I turn out to be at the end.

I will replace that YouTuber’s quote with another great one: “Writing is not the transcription of thoughts already consciously present in the mind. Rather, writing is a process closely tied to thinking.”

I will leave my Creative Energy unlabeled and abstract for now, sitting comfortably in the corners of my subconscious – I’m sure you’d have your own ideas about it anyway, and you’re free to disagree and de-abstract it as you see fit.

For my part, I will keep writing and painting – for me, to me. Whatever that means.