The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
Date read: 2023-05-15
How strongly I recommend it: 9/10
A music genius? Yes. But I didn't know Rick Rubin was also a poet. Rick so eloquently describes what is means to be an artist, to create, inspire, and lead. So good I read it twice.
My Notes
The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable. -Robert Henri
Look for what you notice, but no one else sees.
Nature as a Teacher
There is never a shortage of awe and inspiration to be found outdoors. If we dedicated our lives solely to noticing changes in natural light and shadow as the hours pass, we would constantly discover something new.
We don’t have to understand nature to appreciate it. This is true of all things. Simply be aware of moments when your breath gets taken away by something of great beauty.
It may be witnessing a single-line formation of birds snaking through a half-lit evening sky, or standing awed at the foot of a giant redwood tree that’s thousands of years old. There’s so much wisdom in nature that when we notice it, it awakens possibility within us. It is through communing with nature that we move closer to our own nature.
If you’re picking colors based on a Pantone book, you’re limited to a certain number of choices. If you step out in nature, the palette is infinite. Each rock has such a variation of color within it, we could never find a can of paint to mimic the exact same shade.
Nature transcends our tendencies to label and classify, to reduce and limit. The natural world is unfathomably more rich, interwoven, and complicated than we are taught, and so much more mysterious and beautiful.
Deepening our connection to nature will serve our spirit, and what serves our spirit invariably serves our artistic output.
The closer we can get to the natural world, the sooner we start to realize we are not separate. And that when we create, we are not just expressing our unique individuality, but our seamless connection to an infinite oneness.
Self-Doubt
The people who choose to do art are, many times, the most vulnerable. There are singers considered among the best in the world who can’t bring themselves to listen to their own voice. And these are not rare exceptions. Many artists in different arenas have similar issues.
Some successful artists are deeply insecure, self-sabotaging, struggling with addiction, or facing other obstacles to making and sharing their work. An unhealthy self-image or a hardship in life can fuel great art, creating a deep well of insight and emotion for an artist to draw from. They can also get in the way of the artist being able to make many things over a long period of time.
One of the reasons so many great artists die of overdoses early in their lives is because they’re using drugs to numb a very painful existence. The reason it’s painful is the reason they became artists in the first place: their incredible sensitivity.
If you see tremendous beauty or tremendous pain where other people see little or nothing at all, you’re confronted with big feelings all the time. These emotions can be confusing and overwhelming. When those around you don’t see what you see and feel what you feel, this can lead to a sense of isolation and a general feeling of not belonging, of otherness.
These charged emotions, powerful when expressed in the work, are the same dark clouds that beg to be numbed to allow sleep or to get out of bed and face the day in the morning. It’s a blessing and a curse.
Collaboration
Sometimes the artist may not be the crafter of the work. Marcel Duchamp would find everyday objects—a snow shovel, a bicycle wheel, a urinal—and simply decide they were art. He called them readymades. A painting is just a painting until you put a frame on it and hang it on the wall, then it’s called art.
What’s considered art is simply an agreement. And none of it is true.
What is true is that you are never alone when you’re making art. You are in a constant dialogue with what is and what was, and the closer you can tune in to that discussion, the better you can serve the work before you.
Rules
Rules direct us to average behaviors. If we’re aiming to create works that are exceptional, most rules don’t apply. Average is nothing to aspire to.
The goal is not to fit in. If anything, it’s to amplify the differences, what doesn’t fit, the special characteristics unique to how you see the world.
Instead of sounding like others, value your own voice. Develop it. Cherish it.
As soon as a convention is established, the most interesting work would likely be the one that doesn’t follow it. The reason to make art is to innovate and self-express, show something new, share what’s inside, and communicate your singular perspective.
The artists who define each generation are generally the ones who live outside of these boundaries. Not the artists who embody the beliefs and conventions of their time, but the ones who transcend them. Art is confrontation. It widens the audience’s reality, allowing them to glimpse life through a different window. One with the potential for a glorious new view.
It’s a healthy practice to approach our work with as few accepted rules, starting points, and limitations as possible. Often the standards in our chosen medium are so ubiquitous, we take them for granted. They are invisible and unquestioned. This makes it nearly impossible to think outside the standard paradigm.
Visit an art museum. Most of the paintings you’ll see are canvas stretched over a rectangular frame made of wood, whether it’s Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Socrates or the Altarpiece paintings of Hilma af Klint. The content may vary yet the materials are consistent. There’s a generally accepted standard.
If you want to paint, you’re likely to begin by stretching canvas over a rectangular wooden frame and propping it up on an easel. Based solely on the tools selected, you’ve already exponentially narrowed what’s possible, before a single drop of paint has made contact with the canvas.
We assume the equipment and format are part of the art form itself. Yet painting can be anything that involves the use of color on a surface for an aesthetic or communicative purpose. All other decisions are up to the artist.
Similar conventions are woven into most art forms: a book is a certain number of pages and is divided into chapters. A feature film is 90 to 120 minutes and often has three acts. Embedded in each medium, there are sets of norms that restrain our work before we’ve even begun.
Genres, in particular, come with distinct variations on rules. A horror film, a ballet, or a country album—each come with specific expectations. As soon as you use a label to describe what you’re working on, there’s a temptation to conform to its rules.
The templates of the past can be an inspiration in the beginning phases, but it’s helpful to think beyond what’s been done before. The world isn’t waiting for more of the same.
Often, the most innovative ideas come from those who master the rules to such a degree that they can see past them or from those who never learned them at all.
The most deceptive rules are not the ones we can see, but the ones we can’t. These can be found hiding deeper in the mind, often unnoticed, just beyond our awareness. Rules that entered our thinking through childhood programming, lessons we’ve forgotten, osmosis from the culture, and emulating the artists who inspired us to try it for ourselves.
These rules can serve or limit us. Be aware of any assumptions based on conventional wisdom.
Rules obeyed unconsciously are far stronger than the ones set on purpose. And they are more likely to undermine the work.
Every innovation risks becoming a rule. And innovation risks becoming an end in itself.
Beware of the assumption that the way you work is the best way simply because it’s the way you’ve done it before.
Momentum
Another impediment some come across is that their vision for the work exceeds their ability to manifest it. They can hear the drumline, but the rhythm is more complex than their ability to play. They can picture the dance, but their body can’t perform the moves gracefully enough. It might seem as though the next step is an impossible leap.
In these moments, it’s easy to feel discouraged. We mistake the fantasy version of the work in our minds for what the actual work has the possibility to become. There may indeed be times when our mental conception of a piece translates almost directly into the physical realm. At other times, it’s an unrealistic idealized version. And sometimes, our vision for the work is a goal to work toward, and in the process we come to learn we’ll reach a new and unexpected destination.
Falling short of grander visions might actually put the work exactly where it wants to be. Do not let the scale of your imagination get in the way of executing a more practical version of your project. We may come to realize that this version is better than the initial, seemingly impossible vision.
Art is choosing to do something skillfully, caring about the details, bringing all of yourself to make the finest work you can. It is beyond ego, vanity, self-glorification, and need for approval.
Point of View
The goal of art isn’t to attain perfection. The goal is to share who we are. And how we see the world.
Artists allow us to see what we are unable to see, but somehow already know. It may be a view of the world singularly different from our own. Or one so close, it seems miraculous, as if the artist is looking through our own eyes. In either case, the artist’s perception reminds us of who we are and who we can be.
The Beatles were inspired by American rock and roll, artists like Chuck Berry and the Shirelles. But when they played, it was different. It wasn’t different because they wanted it to be so. It was different because they were different. And the world responded.
There are countless examples of imitation turning into legitimate innovation. Having a romanticized vision of an artist, genre, or tradition may allow you to create something new, because you see it from a different perspective than those closer to it. Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns are abstract psychedelic mythology compared with the American Westerns of the 1940s and ’50s that he hoped to mirror.
It’s impossible to imitate another artist’s point of view. We can only swim in the same waters. So feel free to copy the works that inspire you on the road to finding your own voice. It’s a time-tested tradition.
24/7 (Staying in It)
The artist’s job is never truly finished.
In many occupations, when we go home, we leave our work behind at the office. The artist is always on call. Even after we get up from hours engaged in our craft, the clock is still running.
This is because the artist’s job is of two kinds:
The work of doing.
The work of being.
Creativity is something you are, not only something you do. It’s a way of moving through the world, every minute, every day. If you’re not driven to an unrealistic standard of dedication, it may not be the path for you. So much of the artist’s work is about balance, so it’s ironic that this way of life leaves little room for it.
Once you acquiesce to the demands of the creative life, it becomes a part of you. Even in the midst of a project, you still look for new ideas each day. At any moment, you’re prepared to stop what you’re doing to make a note or a drawing, or capture a fleeting thought. It becomes second nature. And we’re always in it, every hour of the day.
There is no telling where that next great story, painting, recipe, or business idea is going to come from. Just as a surfer can’t control the waves, artists are at the mercy of the creative rhythms of nature. This is why it’s of such great importance to remain aware and present at all times. Watching and waiting.
Maybe the best idea is the one you’re going to come up with this evening.
Why Make Art?
Being an artist means to be continually asking, “How can it be better?” whatever it is. It may be your art, and it may be your life.
Art is a reverberation of an impermanent life.
We share our filter, our way of seeing, in order to spark an echo in others. As human beings, we come and go quickly, and we get to make works that stand as monuments to our time here. Enduring affirmations of existence. Michelangelo’s David, the first cave paintings, a child’s finger-paint landscapes—they all echo the same human cry, like graffiti scrawled in a bathroom stall: I was here.
The reason we’re alive is to express ourselves in the world. And creating art may be the most effective and beautiful method of doing so. Art goes beyond language, beyond lives. It’s a universal way to send messages between each other and through time.
Harmony
However you frame yourself as an artist, the frame is too small.
The universe never explains why.