When you make things, reality is optional

Dylan wrote music to define the way he thought about the world.

He believed that a song was a dream you make come true, and that your role of the artist is to bring sanity into a world of madness, never letting people forget that you have your own way of seeing things.

Van Gough painted canvases to create a different world to express how he feel about this one. He believed that the only way he could relate to the world was to create a counterworld in words and images, pursuing an alternative idea of society, and taking reality as his starting point rather than striking out to create a literal image of it.

The commonality of these two artists is simple. They make things to convey their personal vision of reality. Whatever is going on out in the world has nothing to do with what’s going inside their hearts.

This is the profound liberation and glorious consolation of art. We can do whatever we want. We can play god. We can be as naïve and idealistic and hopeful and irrational as humanly possible. Our vision splendid draws us away from facing life realistically.

Unlike the rest of our lives, where we stoically give up any expectation of what life should be and allow it to be what it is, when we make things, reality is optional.

And who knows? Maybe one day the world to catch up to our vision of what could be. Maybe the world will reduce our work to hopeless spells of insanity. Maybe the world will greet our art with crickets, yawns and shrugs.

But whatever the response is, we won’t notice because we’ll be too busy working on the next thing.

How might you make works of art that are truer than the literal truth?