Here we are. Broadway is cancelled until 2021, AMC theaters pushed back its opening date until the end of July; Disneyland has delayed reopening indefinitely; Texas and Arizona (and soon many other States I suspect) have closed bars, restaurants, movie theaters and gyms once again; oh, and people cannot travel from the U.S to the European Union. Fun times.
As for business, creative business particularly, so many of us are in another layer of Dante’s Inferno. Yes, there is movement and investment in some circles — I know many interior designers that are actually incredibly busy mostly trying to fit in work before the world closes again. However, most creative business owners have been deeply affected by the pandemic and the economic destruction it has wrought and will continue to wreck on all of us for the rest of 2020, if not longer.
Let us not also forget (ever) about the social and political unrest we are facing. We have to do the work of charting a better path at the moment we all are worried about making it through at all. Has to be cocktail hour somewhere I am sure.
What in the holy heck to do? Really only one answer: design first. Design is the process of unfolding discovery until you say to the world here is what I think “it” should be. It can be in any sense, any medium, any bubble; it is what you hope to manifest as the expression of your discovery. It can never be that because that already exists, it does not and cannot exist until you imagine “it”.
Pretty simple right? Except I cannot tell you how many artists refuse, abjectly refuse, to go there and stay convicted to the notion that it is that. These artists make it about the thing, the product, the end result more than anything. And so we persist in this sea of confusion without acknowledging that art demands that design go first.
I have no crystal ball to say how we find ourselves on the other side of this mountain of pain, all I do know is that art will teach us, show us the essence of what it means to be human. Imagination and vision and willingness to create in deep uncertainty shapes us. The real question is whether you are willing to go there? And if not now, when?
Or will fear, panic, despair, and the pain of uncertainty overwhelm you? The choice to stay in the game cannot be without sober understanding. You are going to need to get from here to there when there could be years away. You, your art and your creative business will look nothing like what you do today. Like it or not, the Phoenix needs to burn and it is still deeply aflame today.
The point: even if you decide that the chasm is too deep, the water too fast, design first. Whatever you do, however you move forward, design first.
Ralph Lifshitz from the Bronx got his start selling ties to classmates. Ralph Lauren paint has been around for more than twenty five years and is one of the largest paint brands around. Art transcends its medium. Always.
Pandemic or not, creative business or not, you have to own the artist that you are. Design first.
So tear it all down. Please tear it all down. It should be plainly evident to anyone remotely paying attention that the world does not need more pretty things, it needs imagination, contemplation and commitment to the very essence of creation. You. I deeply know that investment in community, an inclusive culture and innovation at the edge of the long tail will be our bedrocks going forward. We need to invest in that future by demanding our artists be paid for creation first and foremost, manifestation second. This future can only happen if artists show us the value of such an investment. If we can create a culture of design first, just think of what that will do? The courage to fail will be our ethos instead of how well you did on a test that measures nothing.
Dare to dream is cliche. Dare to get paid to dream is not.
