Make art for yourself so that others will enjoy it too

One of my favourite episodes of Duckman (spoiler alert by the by) is where it’s discovered that Ajax, the main character’s slightly dimwitted (okay, that’s a bit of an understatement) son turns out to have a talent for writing poetry.

Soon, however, this talent is exploited by a large corporation, who end up paying Duckman vast amounts of money for his son’s works. The only problem is, Ajax isn’t happy. When he was just writing them for fun, he got enjoyment out of it. But now, he’s expected to write poetry about specific things that people seem to want to read about. And that takes away all of the pleasure from it, making the poor child miserable. While Duckman is greedy, selfish and generally a terrible excuse for a father, he notices that something is wrong and asks him what’s the matter. After hearing that Ajax isn’t happy, Duckman promises to sort things out. And, in the end, he gives up all the wealth he’s paid just so that his son can do what makes him feel good. The episode ends with one of his poems being blown away by the wind, and landing next to a couple having a picnic. One of them picks it up and reads it aloud. His date finds it beautiful, and it’s kind of implied that they end up together because of that. In my opinion, that is all you’ll ever need to know about art.

When writing, or singing, or drawing, or expressing yourself in any form, I think it’s always important that you do it for yourself, first and foremost. It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks; just do it anyhaps. This might seem like a kind of selfish thing to say, but I don’t see it that way. In fact, to me, ’tis actually the most selfless method of producing art. You could just create something that you know would please the majority, but your heart wouldn’t be in it. You’d be holding back, not channeling your very essence through it. Yes, many will like it, but will anybody love it? Will it change somebody’s life? Will it affect them in ways they cannot properly express through words alone, and thus inspire them to be artists themselves? When writing, I just do it because it makes me happy to create things, to use my imagination, to string words together so that they sound pretty, even if they don’t mean anything. And you see, that in itself gives them meaning. Because I enjoy it. Because it makes me happy. And sometimes, it makes other people happy too. One of the nicest feelings for me is when I write something for myself, and it ends up affecting somebody else. Even if only one other person in the whole universe likes it, then I feel like I’ve created something that has worth, that has value. Through art, I want to make others happy, and to feel something special and important. It’s almost an intimate thing, really, shared between the artist and zir audience. It’s something special.

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