CREATING WITHOUT AN AGENDA.
As an artist who also sells my work, it’s easy to start looking at everything I create through that lens. I think I sometimes do this without even realizing it. Like it’s some kind of automatic programming I have running in the background. There’s this pull to think about what something could become, how it could be used, whether it might turn into something more. Recently, I found myself in a couple of situations that made me pause and really question that way of thinking.
Honestly, this often comes up for me when I’m in my studio too. That sense of having an agenda and the pressure to create something I can sell. Another place it showed up for me was at a recent art workshop I attended. I noticed the way I was looking at and thinking about each of the techniques I was learning. It was a mindset I hadn’t fully identified or acknowledged before. I wasn’t just sitting and making things. Part of me was already looking at what I was creating and thinking ahead. What could this become? Could I use this later? Does this turn into something bigger? I could feel myself automatically evaluating what I was doing through that lens. I was even asking the instructor how I could use this in my art.
At one point, I even caught myself hesitating before doing something as simple as gluing a piece down. I had this thought that if I used it now, I wouldn’t be able to use it later, like I needed to save it for something bigger, more important. I actually ended up taping everything instead, which even in the moment felt a little ridiculous. I could see what I was doing and still kept going.
And what’s interesting is, I’ve been learning more about how many of the great artists actually worked and how much of what they made never became a finished piece. There was a lot of volume, a lot of practice. So much of it lived on paper through studies, experiments, things that don’t go anywhere beyond the moment they were made. And only a fraction of their total work ever actually made it onto a canvas or became something more final, a completed piece. Which makes sense when I think about it, but in that moment I wasn’t acting like it was true. I was acting like everything needed to be preserved, like every piece had to hold future potential.
It made me realize how quickly creativity can start to feel like something you have to manage carefully, like it’s limited, something you could use up if you’re not thoughtful enough. And I know that’s not really how it works. I know creativity tends to expand the more you use it. But there’s still this subtle scarcity that creeps in, especially when your work is also your business or tied to something you’re building or something that feels like it needs to go somewhere, become something.
I’ve also been around a lot of people who naturally think this way. They’re always optimizing, planning, strategizing, seeing the angle of how something could turn into a business, a product or something to monetize. And honestly, it’s not wrong. There’s something really smart about it and I can see the value in it. But I’ve been noticing how it sits in me and how it starts to shape the way I approach things, often without me even meaning for it to. I find myself having to run things through my own filter. Does this actually align with my goals and values or am I just getting pulled into a way of thinking that isn’t really mine?
When part of your work is creativity, and that’s not just what you do but part of who you are, the line starts to blur. It’s not just a product or content. It’s how you process things, how you understand the world, how you come back to yourself. And when everything starts to get filtered through the question of what it could become or how it could be monetized, something shifts in a way that’s hard to fully see at first. I can feel myself stepping slightly outside of the moment I’m in. Instead of just creating or experiencing something, I’m already thinking about what to do with it, where it fits, how it could be used, whether I’m making the most of it. It’s very subtle, but it’s there and it changes my experience.
And for the record, I don’t think the answer is to stop sharing or building something meaningful. That matters to me. I want to create things that live beyond me in some way, and I’m also aware that part of this is practical. We all have to support ourselves in some way. But I am starting to see how important it is to have space where I’m not always creating with an agenda attached to it, where something doesn’t need to turn into anything else to be worth doing. Even with what the world or my own inner critic is telling me.
Some things can just be part of the process, part of my creative practice. An ongoing, constantly evolving art journal. A small piece that never becomes anything bigger. Time spent making something that never gets shared. Making art for myself or simply for the sheer joy of creating. Moments that are just experienced and not documented or shaped into something else later. Not everything has to become content or something that needs to be monetized. Maybe that’s something I’m still learning.
I think I need more of that right now. Not in a rigid way, but as a way to stay connected to something that feels more true to honoring myself and my creativity. Because when everything starts to feel like it has to become something, there’s definitely a shift I feel. I notice I start holding back. I get more careful and more strategic and the work starts to feel tighter in a way I don’t really want. Maybe that’s where I shift from right brain to left brain. I don’t know.
At the end of the day, I want to be able to follow what I’m drawn to without immediately thinking ahead to where it’s going. To use something when it feels right to use it. To let creating be enough in and of itself sometimes, without needing it to go anywhere else. And the thought of that feels really good to me right now.
xx,
Michel