5.10.24

Does approaching an act of creation as a commercial enterprise inherently devalue the act?

 

Two different entrepreneurial colleagues have offered perspectives on this topic over the last few days and I think it is worthy of consideration.

Let’s imagine two different acts of creative genesis:

In the first of these, a painter recycles a canvas, combines the last of their acrylics, and sets out to capture the feeling of a sunny afternoon in a lovely field near their home. They have no expectation of anyone ever buying the resulting painting, they are carving out the time to do this work from some other more lucrative pursuit.

In the second of these, an artist is hired to generate six pieces of pen & ink concept art for an upcoming video game; they are given a particular style target (Zach Synder meets Hokusai!), a deadline, a target number of images, and a per diem.

One of these is clearly a commercially minded enterprise which will result in the generation of artwork. The other of these is a personal expression which will result in the generation of artwork.

Does intent matter in the creation of art in the way it does in, say, the commission of murder?

These two entrepreneurs  both independently advised me of the following:

“Do not pursue a new startup venture with a goal of succeeding in a particular business outcome; instead focus on creating a business that will expose you to problems and opportunities and people you are interested in.”

Both of them effectively argued that the profit motive will create undue stress and rob the exercise of joy such that you, the creator, will end up making bad decisions for the wrong reasons and will be much more inclined to quit when the going gets tough than if you were pursuing the effort primarily because it was something you were intellectually, emotionally, or creatively passionate about.

While on the surface this again feels like the Steve Jobs “follow your passion” type argument that we explored and dismissed a few days ago, I do think there’s something here worthy of consideration.

Creating things IS sometimes easy and often quite hard. The usual travails of life regularly make it difficult to stay optimistic, or even to stay focused on the task at hand. But inner fire for the act of creation likely IS a far stronger fuel to at least ensure you have the stamina to stay in the ring.

When creation is a job you have another choice if it gets hard: you can go get a different job.

When creation is an innate desire, you may well need to take other jobs, do other things to satisfy the conditions your life demands, but you will keep creating all the same.

This post is so flavored with the spirit of Sherry Fields, who has ALWAYS created artwork, mostly without any real expectation of profit, in all the many different seasons of her life.

So, thanks, Mom, for embodying the ethos of the lifelong creator. You have given me an example of what it looks like to compulsively create even when life put other demands on your time.

Approaching the act of creation as a commercial enterprise doesn’t inherently devalue the act; but it doesn’t give you the stamina to keep creating things no matter what.