My Artistic Process and My Thoughts on Art Creation Versus Content Creation

Artistic Process

I am often asked about my artistic/creative process, decision making process, the editing, and how my brain works. It’s easy to just say things just come to me organically. But there really is a process to all this. Most of my work is for other people so I make sure to have discussions with the other party to get to know them and what they are trying to achieve, who is going to eventually view the end result, etc.

Inspiration. Most people think that the creative process starts at the point where you are creating a mood or design board and that’s not always the case. For me the creative process starts a couple of ways. One way is me thinking about all the different books I have read and films I have seen since I first started reading from when I was a kid (that’s alot of books and pictures and artwork I have seen). The other way the creative process starts for me is possibly taking a walk outside or sitting in a coffee shop and sipping on a drink to clear my mind so I can think.

Tied to this is inspiration. A common question I receive is how I find inspiration for projects. There's the tangible: art, film, nature. It could be a song, it could be a sound, it could a conversation I had with a friend, a word, history, architecture. It could be a memory, it could be a feeling I felt in the past. It could be the way I saw somebody's dress move as they walked by me while I was running errands. For something I'm working out earlier in the year, the photographer sent me images of where we'll be shooting and in one of the photos, the way the light created shadows from the beams inspired me. But the other part to this is if the work is for a client, to know who the audience is and that can help.

Above: The film “Paperhouse” is based on the 1958 novel “Marianne Dreams” by Catherine Storr. The novel is a children’s fantasy story about a girl who draws a house and a boy in her dreams and finds them in reality.

Processing Information. I may not necessarily start brainstorming on paper right away. An idea will come to my mind and then sometimes I need to let everything sink in. Maybe that’s overnight, maybe that’s a week, a few weeks, maybe even months.

The Eureka Moment. This is when I actually have an idea about how I want to execute the project, usually when I least expect it - maybe I am having a totally unrelated conversation with a friend, maybe I am driving, maybe I am making dinner. I think this moment happens because when you are doing things that don’t require much thought gives your subconscious time to churn.

Questioning The Idea. I think about if my idea is even worth pursuing. I ask myself:

Has this been done before?

How will I do this in a way that hasn’t been done yet?

Will I enjoy this?

Why does this idea or project matter to me?

Am I challenging myself?

I may even run the idea through with people I trust so I could talk things out and make sure my idea even makes sense to others.

Finally Putting the Idea into Place. This last step is when I actually start putting some type of design or mood board together to organize my idea so that eventually the end product makes sense and looks cohesive.

Art Creation versus Content Creation

Tied to creating work is art creation and content creation.

Before the internet, there was a clear distinction between creating work and publishing work. Artists (whether that is a painter, musician, writer, etc) would spend months or even years to create a body of work. Only when the work was ready to be shared with the audience, the creator or their publicist would make an announcement through the media and give radio, tv, or magazine interviews.

While the creator was focusing on their next big thing, they were not expected to be at the audience's beck and call. There was a time to dive deep into their creative process. There was a time for attention and conversation. If a music band took ten years to release an album, there was no way of knowing what was going on with them or if there would even be a new record again.

Since creators started using websites, email, newsletters, and social media to keep their audience updated, these two processes have blended together and it's difficult to tell them apart. We're expected to come up with more social content so our audience won't forget about us, because apparently today everybody has the attention span of a goldfish. It may be different in other industries, but in visual arts and literature, there is an expectation that we need to keep people engaged between new releases while creating new releases at the same time. That is a significant burden on folks who don't have a publicist or a marketing team and do everything themselves. Part of it is taking the time to create a weekly article, a blog, a livestream or a dozen images with thoughtful captions. The other part is devoting all the creative energy from something important and substantial to something ephemeral.

After almost a decade of posting, I started to feel like I was devaluing my work. I don't mean economic devaluing. The type of devaluing I'm talking about is commodifying my art to receive units of attention, turning art into easily consumable posts on a semi regular schedule. Basically turning art into content.

I used to publish everyday, even twice a day. Now I can go days or weeks without posting. I clarify with myself when I'm in the role of an artist and when I'm in the role of a creator. I'm not knocking down content creators, I just don't want to be reduced to that role. I don't owe anyone anything. I owe it to myself to create the best work that I am capable of creating and this involves getting off the hamster wheel of creating content on a regular schedule. That's why I stopped posting my work regularly. All I want to do is create art.

The obligation to create content kills my passion and motivation. I think creating content especially for money works for some people but it's not for everybody. Save your creative energy for what truly matters. Our creative energy often times gets diverted from projects to ephemeral posts. Some forms of content are not enough to create what we need in the world. And I don't want to create for the algorithm.