“You are not required to save the world, of anyone for that matter, with your art. It isn’t valuable only if it rescues or raises money or makes an enormous impact. It can be simply for the love of it. That is not frivolous or selfish in the slightest. If the only person it saves is you, that’s enough.”
Jenn Hatmaker
It’s easy to believe that unless we are creating for the purpose of changing the world or reaching thousands of people with our work then we are doing it for nothing. I’ve believed it.
I hear other artists, who felt fulfilled and secure after creating, believe the lie that because it wasn’t published by a well-known blog it wasn’t that good after all. I’ve believed that one too.
This year I’ve trying to make room for creating just for the sake of creating. I’m doing more self-portraits. I’m working on a personal project telling the story of my battle with depression, based on a poem given to me by an Australian Poet late last year. And it’s hard. It’s vulnerable. Road blocks pop up unexpectedly and they try to break my heart and break my will to keep creating.
But the honest truth is, I need to create in order to purge the story out of the insides of my body. I think I will implode or disappear or shatter if it doesn’t make it’s way out of my veins and brain and spill out into something beautiful. The first step was healing. The next step not so much. But I anticipate the next step will cover over the one before.
Stopping isn’t an option today.