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i depend on you
11/8/25
the value of art
Get Good?
If you're an artist, the chances are you've experienced this too: the comparison game. This feeling that someones always better, seeing other people's art and feeling inadequate, feeling like you need to improve, be better, work harder, follow all these tips to 'get good'.
I've been in that space for a while now and honestly it's really taken a toll on my mental health. This constant need to improve - the constant improving and still it never being good enough is a cycle that is getting harder and harder to bear. I want to feel good about my art. I love art - it's the one thing I have always done my entire life and the one thing i feel passion and joy for. So I really want to be drawing and be happy with it.
But I've been thinking about art and what it means to me, ai art, as well as rediscovering this piece of art that became popular a while back, and it's honestly reshaped my entire view on art itself.
Creating
The first thing I began to question was: what is it about art that I enjoy so much? I enjoy the process of creating, about expressing an idea or a thought and creating something I enjoy. The pride and frustration in getting an idea out onto a page in just the way I envisioned it. I love the feelings that it envokes and the stories that shapes and colors and lines can tell me. I love the thought that hundreds of thousands of years ago my ancestors were stamping their hands on walls and creating makeshift instruments and just enjoying the process of creating something.
While I was wondering about this and taking a break from drawing I came across a piece of art that was popular a few months ago. It was posted on Twitter with the simple caption 'i depend on you'.
As you can see it's a pretty simple piece. But it evokes a certain emotion in me, and conveys a complex message so simply.
And this, I think, is the value of art.
The value of art isn't to create a hyperrealistic portrait or a pretty image, the value of art is emotion. The value of art in images and writing and creating is to make something that expresses a story, an emotion. Because art is so uniquely human, something that humans have been driven to create since the beginning of time it is so important that that's what is stays. Art isn't about looks or skill, art is about expression and joy. It can't be generated because Art is an experience, not just an image.
My art is by no means perfect. It's flawed, it can be ugly and it can look totally wrong. Of course I'll keep improving, I'll probably still keep comparing myself to other artists. And that's okay!
But ultimately, I'm not just creating art to get clout and for it to look nice, because while those things would be pretty ideal, I'm creating art to express myself. I'm doing it because I enjoy it. These are human experiences and I truly don't think they can be replicated, not even by another human being. They're expressions of our thoughts and feelings and stories, it's hardwired into our DNA.
Art is an experience. Maybe that experience will involve frustration and anger and it might not look or sound good at first. But the value of art is the experience of it - the entire experience, good and bad.
So please, make art. Whether music, writing, drawing, etc. anything you get joy out of, please embrace it. Art is something that makes us human. It's so fulfilling. Please, even in these times when art is so oppressed, please embrace it. Make something messy and ugly and full of all your emotion and share it with the world. That's what makes it beautiful. I depend on you.
If you've read all this way, thank you. I plan to write more about art, such as about ai and capitalism. This won't be the last you hear from me on this topic, I just really needed to express these thoughts about art.
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