Art is instinct

The other day in my Pictures for Sad Children post, I alluded to the idea that art, in its purest sense, is the work of a creator doing that which he must by his very nature.

Yesterday, Ryan Adams announced that he was leaving The Cardinals (or, in his revised announcement a few hours later, that he was “stepping back,” whatever that means). Anyone familiar with Adams knows he is prolific; he once released three albums in a single year. Aside from his huge music catalog, he also paints and writes. I think it’s safe to say that he is in his element when he is creating. That’s why I’m not too upset about him stepping back, despite being a big fan. I know he’ll be back with something soon.

I think that instinctive attraction towards creating is what makes the greatest artists. Certainly they have to practice and build their skills, but it’s the one with that insatiable desire to create that can focus enough to get good enough. There’s something different about art created to show off skill or to earn money and fame and art created because it had to be.

In music, it’s the latter that I tend toward. Maybe from now on, when people ask me what kind of music I like, I’ll just tell them, “The kind that would have driven its creator to madness if it had not been created.”

Time for another quote!

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create – so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings, or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.

Pearl Buck