Make Weird Art (Change the World?)

That's it. That's the post.

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... Are you still here? Okay Okay Okay.

I'm never as creative as I am when I am collaborative, or at least in conversation with other people. Even when I am just in a flow state of making shit, it never begins well in a vacuum. I hated a lot of things about art school (I dropped out after second year) BUT I did have a favourite thing: Life drawing class. Nearly every morning for the entire two years I was at OCAD I would take whatever early AM life drawing class was on offer and then stumble in juggling a coffee, a roll of shitty newsprint, and whatever bullshit I was deciding to draw with- pens, inks and brushes, charcoal, sometimes fucking crayons- and plop myself exhaustedly onto a horse to hurridedly scribble through the machine gun fire of 2 then 3 then 5 then 10 minute nude model poses. It wasn't necessarily just the process of feverishly drawing, though I doooooo love drawing. It was what happened after. When the 3 hour session was done, we would pin up drawings and then tour the walls of the room and holy shit what the fuck fucking WOW. In a room of 15-20 people all drawing the exact same subject at the exact same time, no two drawings were alike. People are wild, and messy, and talented, and fascinating. I got better because of the practice, but I also improved because I was in a conversation, a volley, a play with other people. There is no right way to do something, and what an amazing visual representation of the fact that everyone's perspectives are so so different.

I've taken up life drawing again, coaxing out artistic pals who draw for a living and even Jay, my big silly writer husband who comes just for the fun of it. Seeing what they scribble out on those bi-weekly evenings is such a celebration of lively energy and a night spent together. I've also started offering to help or asking to be taught creative practices from folks in my life who do something different than I do. Recently a pal with a textiles degree taught me to screenprint- I helped her design totes and patches for her table at arts market, and we lend a hand when the other wants to scupt, or stitch, or honestly whatever. I have taken pottery workshops offered by my tattoo artist. I took a comics workshop from a creator I admire.

I'm not going to lie to y'all, the world is a bit of a hellscape for creative people right now. There is an enormous movement in tech and big entertainment to offload the energy and costs of arts jobs into free AI programs to create more profit for shareholders. This trickles down to the consumer level, where craft has become a devalued commodity that can be both fast and cheap- even people I respect, careful and thoughtful empathetic people, have presented me with AI "art." They no longer ask me to draw their profile avatar, they don't want to burden me with a comission of a painting of their pet- the just let AI generate something and print the canvas, all remote, no need to wait or have a converasation. Nearly all of Jay's punch-up gigs, punching up plot beats and dialogue for film, have dried up. The loss of interstitchal freelance work for small creators is incalcuable, and the massive layoffs at bigger animation and entertainment firms is devastating. Pair that with the loss of community, as rents and have skyrocketted so as to cut shared studio spaces. And on a consumer level, the algorithm serves hot tailored garbage so specific to your likes as to create individual bubbles of content that nearly never overlap with the people around you. It's no wonder there are constant rumblings of a lonliness epidemic- we aren't learning, we aren't playing, we aren't growing. We aren't making imperfect drawings that we hold up next to each other's to see the beauty in it. We're obsessed with cheap bullshit, exactly as I like it, right when I want it. There's no challenge, there's no conversation, there's no life. There's nothing to wait for, no piece to be challenged by, nothing to engage with.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of powerlessness. When we mass produce product, we lose meaning, and can fall into a spiral of believing that none exists. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, the systems that exist to serve us no longer do with no consequences for that failure, the pool of oppurtunity shrinks and shrinks. We get isolated. We get depressed. We become convinced that nothing matters. I won't pretend that making art is a silver bullet that will solve all of your problems, that not being able to pay your rent is remedied by paint on a canvas or putting words to page. But I can tell you that expression is a special alchemy, and sharing that magic with the people in your life creates empathy and bonds, and in those bonds is community, and in community there is power. We will not be able to have a better world if we can't imagine one, and that imagination looks different coming from each hand. Through the expression of those worldviews, raw and poetic, we can see our similarities and our differences. We can prove that we can lean something from each other (even if that learned thing is as simple as clay on a wheel, or darning a jacket). We can show a patience and a dedication to craft that can translate to other practices, other relationships. And we can see messy, weird, poetic, imperfect, sexy humanity.

The next time you see that writing workshop, that knitting circle, that collage class, that improv group... grab a friend and go, or go and make some friends. Break the cycle of incapacity. Try something, fail at something, make something that didn't exist in the world before. That's magic. It might not fix everything that's wrong on this fucked up planet, but just for a minute you might not question why were are all here and bothering at all. I think that's beautiful. I think that alchemy is the spark by which real change happens. Here's some silly ballpoint life drawings for you as a treat. Show me some weird art you made recently in the comments!