Post

I mostly just feel bad for people like this, who feel like art is some elitist pursuit they were being gatekept from, weirdly conflating creativity with output.

I'm not a professional artist, but have been making art my whole life. I have drawings I made 40 years ago in school, art school projects from 25 years ago, and sketches I made last week. They're all shoved in boxes that I may only look at once or twice ever again.

Most of it is not very good, and I've thrown out way more than I've kept. Making it was the fun part. Making it was the point. The output was secondary. Art is filling an entire sketchbook end to end, just trying to draw hands with a pencil.

Art is writing and recording entire songs that no one will ever hear, that I probably won't even listen to again, because the memory of experimenting with instruments, and learning how to record and mix them is some of the most fun I've ever had, the end product is almost inconsequential.

More than anything it's just sad how people gatekeep themselves from such fun, then mistake automating the fun part as participation. I put a lot of blame for this confusion on deprioritizing art in education so much that some people can't see that it's one of the few things accessible to anyone.