Is art made to amuse the artist, or to allow the artist to pay their bills?
But my gut says there is something more to it…
Sure, you have to be amused from time to time. And sure you have to put food on the table. But you can find fleeting pleasure and sustenance nearly anywhere.
I think music, poetry, writing, sculpting, painting, filmmaking, and the like, all get done because of something else on the inside.
Artists can make art for a lifetime with zero success because creative expression is something of the soul.
Because if not for a higher purpose, what’s the point of anything?
If art and writing have no connection to a transcendent source of law and morality, they are likely to serve no higher purpose than to amuse the artist, and perhaps help a successful writer pay the bills.
-John Erickson, Story Craft (Amazon)
