Making Art in an Imperfect World
There is something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
When I was younger, I believed that life was mostly predictable. That people were mostly very, very good. And that anything that anyone ever did “wrong” was simply a matter of being a kind of forced error, one that they couldn’t control and wouldn’t ever have done if circumstances had been different.
I knew bad things happened, of course. But I somehow imagined they were exceptions. Rare interruptions in an otherwise orderly world.
Age has a way of changing that illusion.
So does loss.
My felt and embroidery Evil Eyes: The more crazy the world feels, the more I think about “protection” and what that even means. We humans are so vulnerable.
The older I've become, the more I've realized that joy and heartbreak are not opposites. They exist side by side, often on the very same day.
For a while, I wondered what role art could possibly play in a world that sometimes feels so uncertain.
Surely painting, collaging and lettering a page in my journal couldn't change any of it.
It doesn't stop wars, heal illness, erase grief, cure hate . . . or the biggie: make the world a utopian place of peace on earth.
But over the past few years I've discovered that I was asking the wrong question.
Art isn't valuable because it fixes the world. I have come lately to accept the world exactly as it is.
Art is valuable because it changes the person making it.
When I sit down with watercolor, a handful of collage papers, or a pen in my hand, something shifts inside me.
My breathing slows, my shoulders drop. Time softens.
For an hour or two, my attention returns to something small and beautiful.
A line, a color, a pattern. The texture of handmade paper.
The way one color looks next to another.
Making doesn't ask me to ignore reality. It simply reminds me that reality is never only one thing.
There is sorrow. And there is beauty.
There is fear. And there is kindness.
There is uncertainty. And there is still the simple pleasure of watching watercolor bloom across a circle.
I've come to believe that creating isn't an escape from life. It's one of the ways I stay connected to it.
Every page I make reminds me that I still have the ability to bring something into existence that wasn't there before.
Not because the world needs another journal page. But because I need to remember that I am still capable of creating something with my own two hands.
Maybe that's why I keep returning to my studio.
Not because I'm trying to make perfect art.
I'm trying to become the kind of person who continues to notice beauty.
Who remains curious.
Who chooses creativity over despair.
Who can still be surprised by a color combination, a museum visit, a scrap of fabric, or a funny little white pen that finally decides to work after refusing to cooperate for weeks.
People sometimes ask me why I make so much art.
The answer has changed over the years.
I used to think I made art because I enjoyed it.
Now I think I make art because it helps me stay human.
And somehow, these days, that feels more important than ever.
xoxo,
Wendy