I began to ponder how I might make these moments, this feeling, a regular part of my life. An online business or brand perhaps? I noted how depressing it was that that’s where my mind immediately went — then corrected myself: that’s where it’s been conditioned to go.

Creativity, to me, exists in two camps that blur together and often overlap. There’s product-oriented creativity, which, as the name suggests, is focused on creating the best possible end product for a given audience in hopes of receiving something in exchange, such as money, approval or attention (not derogatory!). Then, there’s b) process-oriented creativity, which, as the name suggests, is focused on creating for creation’s sake. It’s a space with zero stakes because there is no goal. Not even presence is the goal, because there is only presence.

The path we pursue, however, may not necessarily be our choice. In Against Creativity, Oli Mould writes that “the language of creativity has been subsumed by capitalism.” “Being creative today means seeing the world around you as a resource to fuel your inner entrepreneur.” There is maybe no generation that has creativity confused with entrepreneurship more than gen Z, with more than half of us reporting a desire to be influencers — a career where your job is quite literally to package your personality and creativity into something purchasable. But it’s no vanity plea: since tech platforms like TikTok and Substack have democratized going viral, being an influencer is seemingly one of the most achievable ways to work for yourself (to the degree you can on platforms that take a percentage of your revenue or censor your content or could pull the rug from underneath you at any time). To own your own business in this attention economy is to own more of your hours, your days, your life. Most artists are still not afforded this luxury.

Pursuing process-oriented creativity (or at least pursuing it more often) requires certain conditions — stable housing, some degree of mental wellness, regular autonomy over at least a portion of one’s time. When these conditions are lacking, we skew our visions into something marketable, ultimately robbing the world of art that is more original, rawer, more unique, less palatable. Meanwhile, when we are in a position to have a choice — that is, we’re comfortable, living within our means, not in crisis — we may not even be aware that creation for creation’s sake is an option.

The American dream-ization of creativity

It wasn’t the first time I’d asked myself how I can cultivate a creative practice in my life that was community-oriented, paid me for my skills and was fulfilling — all at the same damn time. After I finished my stint as editor at my student newspaper in 2020, I started a Patreon account where I published newsletters and helped emerging journalists land freelance pitches and their first jobs out of school. Subscribers paid a few bucks a month for guidance and edits on pitches, job applications, interviews and more. I remember realizing one afternoon the emotional output was outweighing the “income,” and the burnout from working four jobs at once was getting to me. But.. I loved it... right? At least I made a few dollars, nullifying any accusation that I was just handing out my own free labour, despite barely being able to come up for a breath. Coming out of journalism school where we all desperately tried to de-normalize unpaid work and internships, this was an important pillar to me. Still, something felt off. Because I wasn’t looking for a full-time journalism job or part-time internship. I was looking for community, connection, a chance to help others create the work they wanted to.

For artists curious about what their work could look like if capitalistic forces weren’t perpetually creeping over their shoulder and influencing their decisions, things might be looking up. The pandemic’s explosion of hobby culture, the analog trend and the rising awareness around the importance of ‘third spaces’ suggest that we’re increasingly choosing to revisit once-existing boundaries between work and play. We’re in a time of “reckoning with the relationship we have with work,” Cut columnist and Life After Ambition author Amil Niazi told me in an interview late last year. “With AI constantly looming and threatening to upend our notion of work; with the economy constantly in flux; remnants of the pandemic and what that did to collapse remaining barriers between work and home; we’re in a moment where we can reorganize how we think about work and why we choose to pursue certain things.”

I’m not interested in whether an artist is chasing attention or enlightenment. I’m curious about who gets to be process-oriented, and what conditions lead someone to feeling compelled to be product-oriented. Our personal responses to these questions can tell us something about where we are in our lives, or maybe even what our creative expressions are currently starved for. There is no final answer to which you pursue; only the perpetual moulding of it throughout different times of your life. All I know for certain is the more I create in hopes of some kind of growth, ascent or gain, the more I try to appease an imaginary audience. But the more I create out of a place of stillness, the more my expression is about nothing but the moment I’m in, like an exhale soothing the nervous system, making space for more. In a world fixated on breaking in or being one of the greats, I am increasingly concluding that making stuff and sharing it with others is the whole point. If you’re lucky, you move someone along the way.

If you’re in the business of constantly renegotiating your own artistic practice, or simply appreciate a neurotic dispatch on creativity to feel less alone, ask your doctor if this Substack is right for you. You can expect essays, reviews, interviews and more.

More than anything, this newsletter is meant to serve as a reminder to get out of your head and into your body, and just freaking make some stuff!

Thanks for reading Make Stuff! All original artwork is by Leila Krichel and available for purchase (just shoot me a DM).

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Talk soon,

Sarah

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