Created From Joy

There are many motivations and reasons for creating art. I can’t say any are wrong if the result is art that truly pleases the artist. For me, I am sure my art is created from joy.

Many motivations

What is it that motivates artists to create? Trauma? Money? Desperation? Joy? I am not qualified to say, because I can only speak for myself. Without being in the mind of another artist and experiencing their motivations, I cannot know.

Much has been written on this, but, again, i am not sure we can fully know what motivates someone else.

We can look at some works and believe they were created as the artist tried to work out some grief or tragedy or great wrong. Or maybe just try to understand life.

Guernica

Picasso’s Guernica seems to be a deep reaction to the horrors of war. Actually, he had been given a commission by the Spanish Republicans to paint a mural for the 1937 Paris World’s Fair. He was not making much headway on it and did not seem highly motivated. Then on 26 April 1937 the Nazis bombed the village or Guernica. Picasso was urged to make this his theme and, after reading eye witness accounts of the attack, he did.

Yes, he was Spanish, although he did not live there at the time and never would again. But rather than being a deeply personal experience for him, he seemed to be able to empathize well enough to bring the emotion through. Anyway, it is considered by many to be his masterpiece.

This does not prove or disprove anything. It just shows that artists motivations are deeply internal and personal. As much as critics try to analyze and dissect a work, they are groping in the dark unless the artist enlightens them.

Joy motivates me

I have discovered myself well enough to understand that joy is my primary motivation when I am making images. Even though I am old and increasingly cynical, joy is what enlightens my work.

Joy can be a small thing like finding a dew covered spider web in the niche of a wall or it can be the sweep of a grand landscape at the right time, like the image with this article. It is not a particular thing or place or time. It is my reaction to it. How does it move me? What does it bring to me at the moment?

Finding these moments of joy draws me on from one to the next. The act of selecting a scene to photograph, framing it, composing it, deciding on exposure settings, etc. is a skill. Doing it is a calming and pleasant activity to immerse myself in for a few moments. Everybody takes pictures. To take one that people stop to look at or talk about is art.

My joy is in capturing and expressing a scene in a way that will be memorable. But even if no one other than me sees it or enjoys it, it is joy and it is my art. No critic or reviewer can take that joy away from me. It matters little what other people think about an image. It can still give me joy.

Not happiness

We need to distinguish between happiness and joy. Many people take them as about the same, but they are quite different. Happiness is a pleasant feeling because circumstances made us content at the moment. A warm cup of cocoa on a cold day. An unexpected letter from a friend.

The next moment, something can take away our happiness.

Joy is a long term view of life. It comes from within and is not completely dependent on what is happening around us. We tend to be joyful when the way we are living our life is aligned with our values and beliefs.

Making images that bring me joy definitely aligns with my values and closes the loop. It reinforces my joy. That is, my images come from joy and making them increases my joy. For me, they are created from joy.

Values

Do you ever consider your values? The principles you build your life on are too important to go un-analyzed. We are more fulfilled when what we do is aligned with our values and we tend to be frustrated and unhappy when we are opposing them. Think about what you believe.

I’m not saying everything we do needs to be for some grand social cause. Not at all. I think that tends to make our work stiff and preachy. I am just suggesting we will be happier and do better work if we are doing it for the joy of our feelings and the pleasure of the creativity.

Try it. You might find more joy in your art and it might come across that way to your viewers.