Yes, Art Made For Yourself Matters – A Ramble « PekoeBlaze

Well, I thought that I’d talk about why art made for yourself (rather than for an audience) actually matters. Because it does. This was something I ended up thinking about on a tired morning in early-mid May whilst making an art journal painting and listening to this TED talk by Amie McNee.

McNee’s speech is a more general one about the importance of creating stuff, especially in the doom-laden popular context these days. She talks about how it is better than spending time on a smartphone, how it’s a rebellion against a world that sees art as “frivolous” etc… It’s a really good speech, although I found myself disagreeing with the part at the end about how art is a legacy. Because I was making an “art journal” type painting which I’m never going to show to an audience. A painting just for me.

An hour or two before I made it, I was overwhelmed with pessimism about the future, and with various stresses. My mood was bleak. A mixture of anger, despair, hopelessness and bitter disappointment with everything. This mood was caused by small-scale personal things and also much larger-scale things as well. But, during a quieter moment, I remembered a couple of parts of my past. And I realised that – back then – the future seemed much worse and more hopeless than it did right now. And I not only survived those dark times, but emerged in a better situation. And this gave me perspective and hope and it made me feel so much better.

And I found myself making a stylised painting/comic panel to remind myself of that. A really cool heavy metal album cover of a painting. One inspired by this melodramatic 1990s videogame box art, where a stylised version of me is standing triumphantly over the remains of a symbolic monster. And, whilst I got the most out of the actual “Compared to [that year], May 2025 is nothing” realisation, making a stylised painting about it was a really good way to remind myself. To express it. To feel badass. To remind myself “You’ve faced much worse and walked away in one piece“.

Anyway, the point is that art made just for yourself is important because of both the meaning it has to you but also the emotions it evokes in you as well. Although Amie McNee’s TED talk briefly touches upon this element of creativity, one of the cool things about making art is that – technically – everything in your art is you. Just like how, when you have a daydream, literally everything in that daydream is you. Even on a purely secular and scientific level, everything in the daydream is electrical activity in your brain. But, honestly, it’s much more fun if you think about it in a pantheistic sort of way.

Because there is something God-like to creating art. And this is why, even if you don’t show it to an audience, making art matters. When you draw or paint a character and a context, you sometimes get to – vicariously – BE what you are painting. Even if it’s from a slight distance – you can be a totally different person, in a totally different time and place. After all, you’re the one drawing every line, choosing every colour etc… When it is at it’s best, making art can be a surprisingly immersive and spiritual thing. You not only become someone else, but you also become a place at the same time. You become the atmosphere and mood of what you are painting.

It doesn’t happen with every piece of art but, when it does, it is amazing 🙂 Seriously, this is something which has to be experienced. And when you experience it, then you’ll get why making art matters even if you don’t show it to an audience.

Ironically, the thing that really hammered this point home to me a year or two ago was messing around with one of those dreadful “A.I. Generators”. Not only do I, ironically, have this soulless technology to thank for starting an art journal (I needed a way to remind myself why I make art, to get extra practice and to restore my confidence in my art) – but, when the novelty value wore off, I suddenly saw what it was missing.

It was missing the immersion and the focus and the satisfaction of actually making art. It felt like using a dull search engine in comparison to immersing myself in making a small painting for 30-90 minutes. To making lots of tiny decisions, shaping a world, pouring my imagination onto the page, vicariously being whoever you are painting, to putting time into making something that feels meaningful to you.

The actual act of making the art, the process of making the art, is the important part. It’s the satisfying part. It’s where you get to evoke emotions in yourself and – at it’s best – there’s something sort of God-like about it. Not in an angry “beards and thunderbolts” way, but in a “I am everything! Everything on this page or screen is me!” type of way. Again, it’s something which really has to be experienced.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂