Hope

I write this on November 4th, with the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and that of the control of the senate still uncertain.  No matter the result though, the effect is the same.  We in the U.S. are a deeply divided people with many millions diametrically opposed to many other millions.  If there ever was a place of hopelessness, that would be it.  Forget about civil discourse or an ability to understand someone else’s circumstance. 

I literally saw a post today about how people should race to Disney World because the minimum wage is going up to $15/hr and the park will become ever more expensive (no idea if this is, in fact, true). Not a second thought from this person as to the impact that raise will have on those that work at the park and what it might do for their families.  And on and on it will go.  We in the U.S. have decided to not see each other and find safety in tribalism no matter the price.  This in a time of abject horror for what the effects of our pandemic have done (and will do) to the global society. When I see semi refrigerated trailers in the back of hospitals acting as temporary morgues to handle the overflow of dead bodies, I imagine the people inside gone and what that means for all of us.

We are left hopeful that there is a possibility of something other, hopeless in the divide among all of us.  Perspective though is necessary.  The world has seen much darker times, the United States very much included.  There will always be a shift and the future will arrive as it does.  Our ability to shape it will only be in our own desire to live with intention.

I wrote in 2016, after that election, that the obligation of creative business owners is to create, to be intentional in the effort.  My feelings are very much the same today.  The necessity of our future rests in those artists who choose to matter, to find the joy in transformation.  While you may not convince anyone on the other side of the fallacy of their viewpoint, you might at least introduce a sense of collective humanity that is gone when tribalism rules the day.

To do this work though, we are going to have to appreciate that change oozes then explodes then implodes and finally comes to its own sustenance. We are also going to have to take stock of what the purpose of art, your work, is to all that surrounds you.  It simply cannot be a means to an end and demands conviction both as an artist and especially as a business.

I read this the other day and it made me so sad (it was written this week), “We’re here to serve our clients’ needs. They want photos of their wedding – without looking awkward. They want their event to go smoothly – with peace of mind on the Big Day and all those leading up to it. They want guests to attend the event – and begin with an experience when they get their invitation in the mail. They want to look beautiful – and feel that way when they look back on the images years later.”

If all artists exist to fill a need, to bring the expected to life, we are lost.  It has to be about so much more.  It has to be about the gift of the possible, the beauty of a well told story and the grace of relationship to ourselves and our aspirations beyond desire. Emotional gravitas has to be the lifeblood of all creative business owners, to all artists.  You have to care beyond just doing a good job. First, the machine will ultimately do a better job than you ever could and second pride is in the effort of expression.  If given the opportunity, please know that want becomes a need when desire is met with enthusiasm and the willingness to move with intention and connection, hope and identity.  You need a chair to sit in, how you feel about the chair and yourself in the chair when you sit in it is the work of designers.  For the sake of all of us, please stop confusing the two.

The lesson that the CF that is 2020 has reminded us is that change is demanded.  The desire to stay stuck, to find identity as the landscape shifts, well that can bring out all things — the best and the worst in all of us.  Perspective owns the ephemeral.  

The responsibility of creatives, artists, creative business owners is to know that an uncertain universe is what brings opportunity, the chance to find other, the redefine the edge and let the beauty of creation ring through as a function of human spirit not ego.  Live in the idea that chaos must ultimately find order only to be undone again. 

When Seth Godin talks about creating a ruckus, this is what he is talking about — the obligation to offer a shift, to find a path not towards accolades or financial reward (though those might come) as the destination, but rather connection, community and a search for other.  My view is the same as it has been since I started in creative business in 2003: art changes the world because it gives us a glimpse of the impossible and a desire to be better tomorrow than today.  Hope lives there.