How to Make Art Every Day
By: Glen Binger
Tags: Creativity, Writing, Writer, Art, Consistency

I wrote this essay because Bud Smith told me to.

Look for yourself: the chapter on pg. 184 of his memoir from, Work, says so. There aren’t any chapter numbers or titles because who cares about that?

I mean, some people probably do. Maybe people who like to study things. But in this, in what he’s trying to tell us about the act of creating, I feel like there’s a time and a place. People can make that call as they see fit.

Bud’s entire chapter is about making art when you can. Once every day. 5 minutes here, 15 there. If you’re lucky, maybe an hour or so.

But that can be tough — I get it. Life happens, as he described in the chapter:

“Between working a full time job and all of the other things that living a life means, it feels easy to put the act of making some art on the back burner. But hey, blink your eyes and you’re gonna be dead and sitting in a coffin down in the ground and you’ll still be thinking about that idea you had for a novel. Only problem is, you can’t move your arms now, because the coffin is so small. Plus there’s no pen or paper down there.”

The key is to take those moments. Hold them by the throat and squeeze.

Don’t waste time on Instagram or with formatting chapter numbers for final publications that no one will care about.

Seize the moment in creative diem. He continues:

“The most important thing is just to be moving in the direction of working on something creative, even if it sucks.”

Art is what makes life beautiful. Making art is what makes life worth living. And everyone’s art is different. That’s the beauty of it. (Some have yet to even realize what their art is. But they’ll figure it out. One day.)

I’m inclined to agree with Bud here.

Sometimes you have to be diligent and take those 15 minutes while everyone else is hurrying out the door at 5pm to sit in rush hour.

Take those 10 minutes while your wife is finishing her hair, even though you were ready on time. She’ll probably even yell at you for being on the phone, pecking away at that novel. She’s been waiting for you because she’s now ready to go and has been this whole time.

But that’s okay. You spent those 10 minutes wisely, making life beautiful in your own way.

Art is a meditational therapy that no one believes in until it touches multiple hearts.

If making art is what makes you happy, then by all means, go and make! Be genuine about it. Good art comes from the heART. It doesn’t matter if it sucks. Great art makes people feel something they’ve felt before, in a way they’ve never felt it.

Don’t take my word for all this though. I’m a nobody, still trying to figure out his own art.

I teach future generations how to read/write legibly, cause the internet certainly won’t do that.

I write books that few people actually read.

I make art of my own, of course, but who’s to say it isn’t dumb. Maybe it is. And maybe I’m dumb too for putting it into the world. But who cares? It makes me happy and I want to share that. Bud wants me to share that.

That’s all art is. It reminds us we’re not dead yet. That we’re still lucky to be alive and breathing on this planet with billions of others who are also stuck in their heads. All of us making our own art. Sculpting our own lives — consciously or not — in pursuit of purpose.

Because life doesn’t have chapters.

Life is what you make of it. Life is what you learn from it. Life is what you write it.