The art in everyday life

I was very fortunate to speak at another excellent Beyond Tellerrand last week, alongside some brilliant and wonderful people. Once again I was inspired by the variety of topics and messages people shared on the stage. Alongside the usual artists’ inspiring career stories and techies’ (equally inspiring) web design magic, there was a strong undercurrent of anticapitalist messaging in a way that is more important than ever, especially relevant given the conference happened in the wake of a truly disastrous election result in the US.

Talented illustrator and lovely human Paddy Donnelly spoke about his career change from UX designer to children’s book author and illustrator. He reflected that before he changed career, he realised that everything he created was digital, and that he wanted to create a lasting legacy in the world – something that would be around long after he was.

At this point I had one of my multiple (and regular) existential crises wondering whether I could really say the same about anything I do. Will there be anything that I can point to when I’m old and say “I did that”? (What is the point of anything, what am I doing with my life, etc etc.)

Well, possibly not. I do software development for a bank. But I don’t actually think that matters very much. Because art is many things, as Hidde said, and some of those things are transient. And I relish things that bring me joy in the present moment.

(To be clear, I totally respect Paddy’s thinking there and our world is all the richer for the beautiful books he writes; it’s actually my own immediate existential crisis that I’m disagreeing with here.)

I don’t necessarily believe that everyone can have a job or even a career that makes them spring out of bed in the morning and gives them creative satisfaction in their day-to-day. Ultimately we live under late-stage capitalism, and I certainly couldn’t afford my house (or indeed any house) if I dedicated my life to, say, running choirs. I massively respect anyone who can and does make a living from a creative art, and I thank you (and want to buy your wares). I work for a Tech Company doing Tech Things for Capitalism, but exercise my agency by being very selective about the companies I work for and the areas I want to work in. The company I work for may be a bank, but it’s changed the banking industry for the better and I believe in the company’s mission. A lot of the work I do is around improvements for customers and the customer service agents who serve them. It’s not children’s books, but it’s a living.

So I get my creative energy and joy from elsewhere. I’m fiercely protective of my free time, even if it’s just spent horizontal on the sofa playing video games. When the working day is done, I have creative pursuits that bring me joy and put art into the world in their own little way.

The wonderful Hidde de Vries stepped out of his usual role as the Pope of Popovers in his closing keynote Creativity cannot be computed. It was a love letter to art in all its forms, a look at what it represents, and what it can do.

And it made me think some more. I should be broader in my definition of "art". Anything remotely creative can be art, if you want it to be. Anything that moves you, or makes you feel something, or brings you joy.

Art is in the songs I teach to my choir, the arrangements I’m proud of even if they only exist as mp3s on a Google Drive and as individual parts in the brains of a handful of exhausted Londoners. We’ll perform those songs, bring joy to the audience (and ourselves), and people might remember it, or they might not.

Art is watching other people in the choir learn to arrange and conduct songs, their faces lighting up as the harmony comes together and the choir is brings their ideas to life.

Art is in the weird and wonderful websites I make occasionally, which bring people (including myself!) a moment of joy when they land on them.

Art is in the food I make. I’m a great cook (and an even messier one) and the Jewish side of my family has instilled in me a primal need to feed everybody. I show love through my food, so I bake for people, I mail out homemade sweets at Christmas, and I love feeding a crowd. Hours of preparation is gone in minutes, but it’s worth it.

Art is in the flowers I grow, which bring colour and beauty to the garden for a brief season before dying back, but will sustain the insects and birds that pollinate our plants and underpin our ecosystem.

Art is in the little crafty projects I do, and sometimes finish, but usually don’t. I’m painting an advent calendar right now, lots of little wooden drawers, and I’m not the greatest painter but it’s going to be delightful, and full of chocolate anyway.

I think there’s even a bit of art in shitposts and stupid jokes that I make knowing that people will roll their eyes but it gives me a little bit of joy to think about it. I learned from an early age that I could make people laugh. If I can distract you from... all of this for just a second with a really stupid joke, it was worth it. (That said, some of my jokes definitely deserve the withering looks.)

All this to say, art can be fleeting and still be worth it. I encourage you to lean into the little things that bring you joy, and think about where there’s art in those things. You don’t have to paint the Sistine Chapel to bring art into the world.

It’s becoming more important than ever that people keep making art, in the age of derivative AI slop and an ever-worsening political climate. Deliberately creative pursuits are radical. I gave a talk a while back about building personal websites (and I’ll write that talk up soon) and how that’s a radical act in this day and age of an internet of shit, and I think this is exactly the same. In a world of shit, creativity for creativity’s sake is radical.