Many artists suffer for their art, consider it work, a chore, or something tedious and unpleasant. Considering it difficult to fill in a canvas is a sign that the artist may not be looking at art as a fun process and is instead trying for other goals. I do not mean to derogate using pain to produce art. Some of the best works ever made involved a great deal of suffering and struggle.
However, my direction for artistic expression is making the entire process of creating art, from buying the materials, to laying down the first pen stroke, to completing a piece, to displaying and selling the piece, to when a patron looks at the art, the entire process should be fun, happy, joyous, and light. At the risk of being grandiose, if a society cannot produce fun art, it may be a canary in the coal mine that there are some serious problems with that society.
I define art as the synthesis of logic and emotion, thus the medium is not so important, and can even be videos, games, dance, or other creative forms as long as there is both an expression of feeling and a more structural meaning that are combined to form something greater than each part. I see no reason why, by this definition, something fun from start to end cannot fit in that mold.
Sadly, by my own definitions I am not yet fully a realized artist. I always have fun doing my drawings every day as a break from less fun work. And, I’ve sold a few pieces and had fun doing it, offering a price of one dollar to some of my close friends. But to realize my vision, I need to actually get compensated for having fun, and get my work into people’s lives beyond just my own sketchbooks. I’d like to prove the old adage that “if you get paid for it, its not fun” wrong somehow.
Feel free to reach out to me michaelplzno@gmail.com if you want to say hi, have questions, or are interested in buying or displaying my art. I’ve been getting some of my works ready for sale and am looking forward to realizing my thesis that Art is fun.
