Why I Create
I simply reinvent what already exists; we all do.
A billion and one things will outlive me, but to be a part of their story presents an opportunity to touch the immortal.
When I create, I’m seeking answers to the same questions over and over:
Why are we here?
What does it mean to be human?
Where did we come from, and where are we going?
If Life and Death were equals, with no fear blinding either side, what would they look like?
What would I look like if my own questions were not feared but hunted like treasure?
What you value as an artist is the undercurrent of everything you create.
I value curiosity. The kind that consumes you, cloaked in nostalgia and memories and hopes of an alternate future.
I believe creating is the purest form of faith; it demands you abandon the safety of what is known and controlled by your perceptions; it invites you to partake in what you can’t handle.
In doing so, we are transformed, and that is why it’s so important for artists to count the cost of an invitation to make art. One day you will find a different person staring back, and if you don’t mind surprises, perhaps disappointment will not accompany the moment.
But I have seen too many great minds lose their footing because they thought art was something they could conjure up within, rather than something that has always existed and always will without them.
Of course, every issue is multi-faceted, and I do think that in spite of creativity having it’s own autonomy--
True art comes from the overflow of self exploration.
In giving permission to create, we ourselves fall into the hands of recreation.
That is why I am here.
To find truth itself and what it has to say about me if I sat down and listened.
Truth takes on many forms— beauty, pain, love, grief, etc.—and we must create expressions for it as we unravel the reality of being caught between realities.
Is this always flushed out in the deepest of philosophical measures? Of course not, there is room for simple pleasures too.
But for me, I will always be wrapped up in the grandioseness of it all, chasing that high as long as I can… the moment of asking something made by your own hands “how on earth did any of this come to be?”.
