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Recently, I have been more open to art. And perhaps to bring more art into my life. Last week, as I came out of a Ludovico Einaudi concert, I could not help but think about how the value of art is often underestimated. Not monetarily. Just as something valuable to be part of our lives. We seem to struggle to find utility in it, and therefore, we limit the whole experience of art.
The Artist Way and my Rediscovery of Art
In the last year or so, I’ve dedicated a good amount of time to The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. If you are not familiar with it, The Artist’s Way is a process to help you reconnect with your inner artist and let art back into your life. In theory, we all have some form of artistic expression inside, but we keep it away or are not always able to access it.
When I started, I already kind of knew what my art was. As a child and teenager, I wrote lots of poetry. I could not quite point out when I stopped it, until I went through the book and the process, only to find out I stopped it when I became a respectable banker in London. No one told me I should, I just must have subconsciously assumed it. It is interesting considering that in one of my interviews, the fact that I had previously published poetry was a motive for conversation.
So for the last 20 years, I have done very little poetry and dedicated myself to blogging instead. After all, I still had a huge urge to write. As I navigated the artist way, I allowed this form of art back into my life. But it was not a smooth path.
No Utility = No Time
To be an Artist, you have to make time for it. Not only to produce art, but also to surround yourself with more art (through Artist Dates) and to be more connected to your subconscious (through morning pages). This all takes a lot of time. So one of the hurdles I faced was struggling to find time for art because it didn’t have a utility value. I was not being productive; I was not doing something. There was nothing to take off my list, and it was easy to de-prioritise in the face of everything else.
Because there was no clear utility, I didn’t make time. Everything else felt more important, and I couldn’t justify spending time writing a poem. It was a long process. Luckily, I did this process with my closest childhood friend. As we both struggled with accepting that art was a valuable addition to our lives, and we fought the urge to justify ourselves to the outside world, we made progress. But if I am honest, the only reason I did not drop it at first was that I did not want to let her down.
Curating Art into my Life
My portfolio life is already quite full. I have my business, teaching, the charity, the blog, the investing, the podcast. Last year, when I did some work on clarifying my priorities and curating where I would spend my time, I could see how the different parts connected with each other and even reinforced one another.
Art and poetry had no part in this, though. When I look back at my Vision Board for the last 3 years, there was always a solid component of writing and creation in it. And then I looked at my goals, and there was absolutely nothing tangible bringing this to life. Again, there was regular blogging, but that was never what I meant in my vision board.
Well, here is the goal-driven person preaching that goals help get to the direction we want, having goals for 7 different things, and Art was nowhere to be seen.
It just wasn’t something I considered part of my designed life.
But What is the Point?
One day, I mentioned to Hubby B that I was struggling with valuing art and therefore kept sabotaging myself and was even a bit scared to talk about it, in case someone just thought this was a spoiled woman’s midlife crisis. As ever, he was quite surprised by my struggle, not because he was biased towards my writing (he has actually barely read any), but because he saw clear value in art.
I fought back and challenged him "It's poetry, nobody reads poetry, so it's not really art!"
He laughed back and just asked me blandly "You listen to music, you value someone creating it, why would you not value poetry?"
The truth is, I did not know the answer. But I realised there, and then, that Art takes many forms, and the world needs all of them. Whether I see myself as an artist or not (we are still working on even considering calling ourselves artists, but we shall get there), there is a form of creative expression going on. And whether I believe in it or not, the more I let it into my life, the better I feel and the more I want to create.
Over time, I got more comfortable with spending time working on my form of art. I also got more comfortable spending time watching, observing, listening to, and embracing other forms of art. That is a big part of having a more artistic life: not just producing art, but also embracing art that fills your bucket, your inspiration, and your spirit.
Coming out of the concert, I feel like there is a point, and that I am more able to articulate the value in art.
Art as Emotional Connection
Art is an emotional connector. For me, this applies especially to some forms of written art, such as poetry and music. Often, we are not able to express or even identify certain feelings, emotions, or discomforts. And then suddenly, through a song, powerful lyrics, a poem, a quote, or a story that feels highly related to what we’re going through, we find that empathy and emotional connection. Like someone knows exactly what we are feeling and they have put it into words for us.
For me, poetry comes more naturally through a lived emotion. However, over the last few months, I have been working on my ability to express shared emotions, those that people try to convey and that open an emotional gate to me. To be able to give words to more universal emotions, rather than just my own. To offer words to the moments where we may find it challenging to express ourselves.
Over the years, this connection was my main driver for writing. Even when I moved to blogging and away from poetry, my main goal was to ensure it was relatable, that someone’s life could be impacted by it. If I had touched one life, then I would have accomplished my goal. Through shared humanity.
Art as a Source of Joy
The other value I see in art is joy, in some shape or form. And that is what I felt at the concert, and whenever I go to a concert, which is not as often as I would wish, because I seem to forget how much joy it gives me. Art gives colour to our emotions. It gives shape to our feelings. It puts sound into what we experience. It almost gives a soundtrack to our lives, making it more joyful.
Art has the ability to make you present in a moment and enjoy it in a way that is often very hard to reach. Whether you go to a comedy show and laugh, or you watch a performance that mesmerises you, Art fills your heart in a way that is severely underestimated.
And joy is the meaning of happiness.
Art as a Form of Expression
Finally, art is a language. It allows us to find our own expression in ways we don’t fully grasp until it comes out. Many of us may not recognise it yet, or may not have found our art yet. But finding it is like finding a connection to a better understanding of our soul.
Art is a form of expression that can move us away from rationality, from conforming, from usual norms, and reach a deeper level of consciousness.
It allows us to express what is underneath.
So Art is useful then?
In my head, it helps that Art can be useful as an emotional connection, as a source of joy or as a form of expression. In reality, there is something else that makes life so important. It’s that we don’t always have to be doing something utilitarian.
Recently, I mentioned to my sister that I was writing poetry again and mentioned a few of the ideas we had for it. She swiftly reminded I don’t have to do something with it. I can just write it, for fun, with no goal in mind.
It’s hard to dedicate time to an activity that has no end or no value or no utility attached beyond making you feel good as you do it, perhaps. But it is also liberating. Doing something without a purpose is rare. It happens seldom, and seldom does it get the approval of society. Because aren’t we all meant to be doing something useful with our lives? At the core of the artist’s freedom, it is the desire to create for pure enjoyment of our inner child.
That is the role of hobbies in our lives, whether they are art-related or not. They are ideally not goal-driven, and they don’t fill a particular function.
The lack of utility does not render art irrelevant. It simply means it is not framed around the usual structures we apply to our lives, such as metrics, outcomes, deliveries, milestones, timelines, and deadlines. Some people will indeed transform their art into a form of living and utility, but it is also okay for it to exist on its own.
For the connection, the enjoyment, and the expression. Or just for the fun of creating.