We Need to Make Art

It's part of being human

I’m a good strategist and a great writer. (Humble, too.) I’m also an amateur photographer. I write books. I draw little pen drawings. I can play guitar decent enough that you’d know the song.

Humans aren’t designed to only work and recover. One reason that I pick the themes I do for each newsletter I write to you is because anyone can teach you the mechanics of business. I’m working to orchestrate a different layer: the game above the game. I’m showing you that all life requires a blend of your productivity and ambition, but also your imagination, your empathy, your sense of wonder.

Art is expression, sure. But it’s also a tool for connection. It’s a way to gather round the campfire and extend that beyond just warmth and safety.

And I mean “art” in whatever form you like: tying flies, nailing boards together, restoring furniture, writing poems, any of it.

Art is the use of human creative skill to produce something that can reflect beauty, emotional power, or conceptual meaning.

Why do YOU need to make it?

Our brains and bodies and minds and souls need to do something other than what’s necessary. Just as “play” helps us develop and learn, “art” helps us express and shape and if we’re lucky connect. We can watch games, and talk about them. We can consume music or movies and books and talk about them, too.

The difference when we CREATE is that we come to appreciate the process, we start to add our voice to the experience, and it gives us a new potential bridge into connection that others might also be seeking.

If all you do is consume, it’s almost like work in a way. Watch this, read this, listen to this, “keep up with” whatever.

When you create, it’s about shaping something. You turn something that’s inside you out into the world and see what happens next.

You Don’t Have to Be Good At It

I want to show you two photos I’ve taken recently.

The first photo is reasonably okay. A little river, a bridge, some trees, a house or two. It’s utterly forgettable.

The second photo is black and white, showing a building or structure with no roof. The sun is pushing through. Where is this? What happened? Am I exploring an abandoned building?

Neither photo is particularly good. But one or the other of them might have triggered that part of your brain that says, “Oh, that made me think about _____.” That’s what art can do.

And you don’t have to be good at art to inspire that feeling. But that feeling is a gateway to the opportunity to connect with people and share.

Art Creation Taps Other Parts Of Your Brain and Skills

One way to get our brains working better and understand others more and improve our opportunity to have more valuable interactions with business colleagues and prospects and collaborators is by opening our thought patterns up so that we can see in ways the other person might not.

My first sentence in this letter to you: I’m a good strategist and a great writer.

I do the first part by seeing the world differently, and I do that by creating art. I do the second part by practicing communicating what I’ve seen in ways that might be helpful to you, and I do that by creating art.

To be clear, I don’t mean “let robots make art for you.” I think it’s fine to have the occasional collaborator, but if you’re not making the art, you won’t get the rewards of the effort.

So I’ll end by asking you: what’s your art? What do you create? And do you share it?

Hit reply and let me know.

Chris…

MY OTHER PROJECTS

• Photography as Meditation

• Off Screen Life

• Building Agents (AI tools)

• Executive Leadership Coaching - email me: chris@chrisbrogan.com