Rationally, I know that work and joy can go together. They may come smoothly together in the act of making art. But emotionally, I struggle. My calvinist upbringing and the culture I grew-up in of “making art is not work, it is joy, hence reprehensible” make it difficult for me to make art without a feeling of guilt.

I was raised in a rock solid reformed christian or calvinist tradition of hard work. The original Calvinist idea is one of unescapable predestination. It is based on the idea (yes, a mind model) that, “at the beginning of time, God selected a limited number of souls to grant salvation and there’s nothing any individual person can do during their mortal life to alter their eternal fate.”

In the religious community that I grew up in as a child, this idea translated into “you will work hard the rest of your life and you will never, ever ask why, because it is a God given duty, or even plight“.

And at first glance, that seems perfectly fine, right? Well, yes, it has brought me a lot of good things. It brought me stamina, grit, character, not giving up when things are difficult. It brought me the capacity to make a living and take care of my wife and my young family. The opposite of laziness, enjoyment and admitting to instant gratification. All fine.

But there is a downside. The problem is that after so many years of dutiful labor, the whole idea of doing nothing, enjoying life for the fun of it, ‘la dolce far niente’, ‘le savoir vivre’ has become sort of a forbidden fruit (to remain in biblical terms).

Generally, I tend to feel guilty when doing nothing. And the feeling of guilt is not so much a religious feeling, though, in my case, despite its undoubted religious origin. It has become a feeling of guilt towards all the people in the world who are suffering a harsh life. I will not elaborate on it here, but it has a lot to do with questions about when and why one person would deserve a better life than someone else. Who determines? What are the rules? Are there any rules? Or is it all ‘the laws of the jungle’?

Anyway …

Anyway, it does have a big impact on my artistic work. Mentally, I still find that creating art falls in the enjoyment category. To me, it doesn’t feel like work, let alone hard work. (Sorry, Vincent.) That is a big road block for me mentally to dedicate time to making art.

This is what I found out, lately. Suddenly, it dawned to me. It has a lot to do with people I know who are currently in the process of retiring. Retiring is a weird phenomenon in the richer parts of the world. You just stop adding value to society and merely usurp the right to become a social liability. Even if you can easily add substantial value to society. Pure laziness. At least, that is how it feels to me. In the Inuit world, if you couldn’t add value anymore, you would then voluntarily withdraw from society and head to the Eternal Hunting Grounds … to die from freezing all alone.

Does making art count as work?

So, this is my struggle. Is creating art actually work? Does it count as work?

I am not the first artist who struggles with this dilemma. Here’s an interesting article by Julien Posture of Cambridge University on the subject: “Why creative labour isn’t always seen as “real work” – and what that means for artists and designers“. And here’s a quote from that article:

For the past few centuries, we’ve held the strange assumption that making art is inherently different from other types of work. Creativity, we’ve been taught, is its own reward. We can see the traces of this idea in many places: the taboo that surrounds talking about money in art schools, the persistence of unpaid design internships, and the regular propositions to pitch for free. For several decades, the price of this belief has been creatives’ difficulty in conceiving of their work as labour – and by extension, to benefit from the gains of other workers’ struggles.

Another thing that made me think about this topic is a recent article in the Dutch newspaper NRC about artist August Dirks, who said: “The purpose of life is in pleasure and wine.” A large part of his life he sailed the seas with his Ship of Fools, performing theatre acts for audiences in harbours around the world. How different from the calvinist philosophy! He said his life evolved around camaradery. Pleasure, wine, art and friends. Can that really be a purposeful life?

Anyway, recently I visited the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, watching paintings by the great impressionists and post-improessionists, such as Monet, Chagall and Van Gogh. What struck me deeply was the incredible amount of attention the artworks got from the huge and jostling crowd. That to me was a great confirmation that, yes, there is value in art, social and economic value. But … this is only true for good art. So, creating good art does really fall in the category “work” rather than the category “joy”.

So, rationally, I know that work and joy can go together. They come smoothly together in the act of making good, very good, extremely good art. Rationally, I know. But emotionally, I still struggle. My calvinist upbringing and the culture I grew-up in of ‘making art is not work, it is joy, fun, entertainment, hence reprehensible’ make it difficult for me to make art without this feeling of guilt.

How on earth am I going to solve this … ?

There is only one way out: making good art, very good art, extremely good art!

There is only one way out: making good art, very good art, extremely good art!

Yep. Do you see? It is the calvinist way of making art: art as work!

For me, with my branwashed brain, there is no escape, there is no other way. Being an artist is only allowed when it is productive work with added value. And the only way to create added value art is to make good art, very good art, extremely good art.

There is no other way …. for me.