GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

On elections and making art

Bad result, go make art!

I get why this statement is so obnoxious. Shit happens and just advise folks to move on? Is this the content creator’s version of hustle culture? How do you say #privilege with anything more trite?

Let me try to defend the sentiment with three tangents.

  1. What else should we do? Making art is unequivocally better than doom-scrolling (or gloat-trolling). This world hasn’t actually changed today—a guy just won a four-year lease on a building at the edge of a continent. You’re not that dude. If you should’ve been making art on Monday then you should make art on Wednesday too.
  2. In a world of competing truths, I hope you believe there is something special with your truth. Make art that lives in this truth and let us partake through your art.
  3. Most importantly, making art shifts your world. It might not be a direct path to enlightenment like reading Spinoza, but if you aren’t meditating under a waterfall, then mashing marks on paper is a fine way to exploring the truth.

By all means, be human. Feel the dread (or elation). Curse the gods. Then hug the kids and guinea pig. Shit, shower, and shave. And get to work. We need you to make it.

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11/8—Inktober 52, week 45

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