Last week reading an essay in The Marginalian about Loren Eiseley’s musings on the meaning of life by Maria Popova I ran across a statement about consciousness’ “irrepressible impulse to make meaning out of indifferent fact.” This led to my musing about making meaning of life, which in turn, led to musing about meaning in art, and wondering if the two were somehow related.

The meaning of life is a question which is too big for me, but the question of meaning in art is a different thing, and one that I thought was worth examining. It is obvious on the face of it that not all art, or even most art, is meant to reflect the meaning of life, so we can dismiss that idea immediately. There may well be pieces that attempt this, but it is not a significant percentage.

There is no argument that art has meaning, at least some art. Perhaps even most art in some way reflects on some aspect of the human situation. Other art may not; its existence is its only meaning. And art is not really utilitarian, although some of it does cause viewers to think, to consider; other art simply provides pleasure because it is interesting to observe. Given that, why have art at all?

Some artists seem to be impelled to tell stories regardless of the media in which they work. We find stories in written work, film, in song, in instrumental music, in dance—virtually everywhere. Such stories reflect not only all aspects of life, but speculate about possible futures or focus on fantasies. Other artists are not interested in stories but rather impressions or feelings that they create work to communicate. Again the variety of media is extensive.

And artists are motivated by any number of things. Some are motivated by social conditions, some by domestic situations. Still others by dreams. Others by a conversation they overheard or something they read. Some by nature. Some by the news. Some want to better the world; some just want to entertain. In other words, artists can be motivated in an endless number of ways. And the variety of art work they produce is also seemingly endless and runs the entire gamut from profound to trivial.

Yet we label all these things that they create as “art.” If they do all fall into that single category, what is the impetus for their creation that can apply throughout that category?

Although the motivation, media, meaning, and depth of art varies from artist to artist, the impetus seem to remain the same, although the strength of the impetus also seems to vary from individual to individual: in some it’s just a tickle; in others it’s a necessity.

That impetus is simply the human urge to create. Whether what the artist makes is insightful or superficial, large or small, complicated or simple seems not to matter at all. Whether the artists sell their work or hide it in the attic also seems to have little impact. How many people see the work often makes no difference. Whether the artist receives recognition or not is of no import. What matters is the making. And it seems that’s all that matters—all the rest in ancillary.  Of course, we can find counter-examples to all of these instances, but on the whole, the making is what’s important.

Keep making!

Achieving a decent work-life balance is difficult for most Americans. If those Americans are in the arts, the task is even more difficult. The reason for this is, of course, is that most people who are in the arts are obsessive individuals whose primary obsession is the work they do. Given that, it is, of course, difficult to achieve any sort of work-life balance. This is the reason that artists historically have such bad family lives. They often feel compelled to spend more time on the play, composition, book, poem, sculpture, or painting than they do on relationships or family matters.

For many artists, art is all that matters, so art is their life. Everything else is secondary. In such instances, any kind of work-life balance is really impossible because such artists are working literally all the time—until they decide to take a brief break. But that’s all it is—a break, not anything approaching balance.

The key seems to be to set firm limits on the time the artist spends at work and they time they spend in other activities. For example, I know three artists who have achieved something of a balance in their lives. All are teaching artists as it turns out. One produces art as a part of his teaching load; one has reduced his artistic output to one faculty show per year: and the third does a mix of producing work as part of his teaching with a side job now and again. So I don’t know that we could label any of these full-time artists. Still they are making their living working in the arts and all three have achieved a balance of sorts between work and the rest of their lives.

Interestingly, they have all done it the same way. They have set limits by regulating their time at school as “work time” and their time away from school as “home time.” There is, however some crossover. Personal phone calls happen during work hours, and work phone calls happen during home hours. Of course, occasionally, work demands more than the scheduled time, and all three then put in more time for their work, but for the most part, the separation is complete, and all three seem to be content with their arrangements.

Then I know artists who also teach and produce art as part of their school work, who devote themselves to the work in the same way a completely obsessed working artist who was not a teacher might. These artists spend a great deal of time “at work” and even when they are officially “not at work,” they are still developing ideas and working at their art. They fall into that category of artists whose work is their life, and, as one would expect, their home lives are far from traditional and stable.

It is not the goal of this post to decide which of the artists mentioned has a superior life. That is a decision that each artist has to make for themselves. However, if we are to achieve any sort of meaningful work-life balance, we will have to follow the example of those artists who establish a set time and/or location for work, and devote the rest of their waking hours to other aspects of their lives.

Whatever way we decide to pursue art and live our lives is up to us, and it is not a one-size-fits-all choice. We must each find our own path and hope that the path we choose is fulfilling both in terms of our art and our lives.