drifters

I firmly believe that an artists value should not only be validated through the content of their work, but also the incessant need to create it in the first place.

The only condition in which I'd actually look myself in the mirror and call myself an "artist" (a debate that has been touched upon many times on this site) is that I just want to lay all my ideas down somewhere I can see them. I don't really give a shit if anyone ever sees them; I just need to know I made them. In fact, 90% of all the work I've ever made sits in the dark. However, I experience solace knowing that it even transpired.

It shocks me to hear that some of my closest friends, who's works of art I once loved in the past, have nearly completely abandoned their love for creating more work and/or have barely made any since our last encounter. I don't understand how a once burning passion to created images was simply done and done-with after a certain point in their lives. Isn't it something that should just burn like an ember inside of you?

Personally, I know that once I have an idea in my head, it's go time. I smirk to myself, write or type it in detail (because one time I was drunk and wrote "family security" on a piece of paper and had no idea what the fuck I was getting at the next day), and then sleep on it. That entire night, I'll lay in bed with the sensation that I'd just won the lottery and didn't want to tell anyone. I then damn-near run to my studio within days to get things moving on a canvas. Nothing can get in the way of this kind of speed, because usually I know exactly what the finished pieces are going to look like, almost how a chef can taste the food before it's been prepared.

So for me to hear that ones inspiration to create is all but lost, it confuses me more than anything. I was going to say it saddens and upsets me, but a lack of motivation and drive are not character traits I hold very high. If you want to make it, make it. If not, just keep drifting.