The Shared Creativity of Artists and Inventors: What Ties Them Together
- Caroline Maria
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Welcome to The Artist Truth blog's first post. I've been writing for a long time, and even had a few professional writing jobs, but never a blog post. I've also been a digital artist for over 25 years, starting back in the day of Aldus Freehand, Pagemaker, and doing mostly graphic design work for companies and then a few years of freelance work. And now, for the past four years, I have been working at creating digital illustrations and surface pattern designs, while also working a full time admin job from home.
My intent is that all of my posts will focus on some aspect of the experience of this artist - in particuarlly, a seasoned artist but an aspiring artist/entrprenuer like me and I think other artists will be able to relate or remember when they were like me - at the beginning. The inner critic tells me not to say this, but, I am an artist who struggles to bring my ideas into existence and do something with them and am often convinced that I really don't know what the heck I'm doing when it comes to navigating social media, print on demand, posting, and losing focus, or losing motivation - because all I want to do really, is make the art! Apparently that actually is, too much to ask for (or expect).
Since I began (or restarted) my digital art endeavors, I have had to make many humbling adjustments to my expectations of what it would be like to be a sole entreprenuer digital artist who is not only creating art but also figuring out how to share and where to share what I create. I can't say I have thoroughly read the biographies of some of the great inventors, but I've gathered some information about them, atleast enough to know and assume that artists of the kind who are passionately unrelenting in their desire to create, have many shared experiences with the likes of Thomas Edison or Elon Musk.
I know this because (for one reason among others), there was a road trip I went on a few years back, and along the highway, I pulled into a rest stop for a stretch and gas. Upon walking into the store, there in large painted letters high up on a wall was this quote,
"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up - the most certain way to succeed is to try, just one more time."
The author of that quote that I instantly identified with and gravitated to for inspiration and motivation was Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb.
What was a magnificent quote like that doing painted prominently on a wall in a roadside gas station/convenience shop? My only guess is that the owner identified with the saying and wanted to share what had helped him. But more to the point, what would lead Thomas Edison to think that and to think it so often and feel so strongly about it that he would say it and send a message of hope to other creatives, as they work at 2am, in the only room in the neighborhood that has a candle burning or a light on while others sleep. He must have arrived at that affirmation through his own struggle, his own late nights of repeated unsuccessful attempts - after applying hours of devoted trial and error to his passion and to seem to be no closer to his goal with no apparent payoff for his tenacity. He must have wanted to give up at times and fought against it. He must have wondered if he was wasting his time when the lightbulb would not light, or stay lit, or short circuit and burn up another tungsten fiber, etc.
And what if, he may have thought, I invest all this time and effort and it NEVER works? There was no guarantee of success, from his side of history - as he labored, he could not see the day the lightbult worked and the lights eventually go on, spreading clarity and comfort into the dark hours and rooms all over the world. Well, Mr. Edison - we all still adore candlelight, but your lightbulb idea and your unrelenting passion to bring it into existence was a great and worthwhile endeavor that humanity is thankful for.
There is also the example of Elon Musk, the mecurial outerspace-obsessed (and regretfully AI obsessed) genius who got that Space X rocket thingy, the Falcon Heavy, to come back to Earth and sit itself slowly and precisely into it’s holding bracket when it's mission was completed. Aside from what a cool thing that was to watch, I do admire the man for his imagination, persistence, and daring to dream those seemingly impossible dreams. He too said something inspirational, which again, like Edison, clearly reveals his struggle with unknown outcomes with no guarantees of success.
“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”
Like the inventor Elon Musk, all creatives, and all forms of art are innovations, a new take on what has been done before. Of course some can make a living by throwing a few buckets of various colored paints at a canvas and call it art by way of some goverment funded art grant, but if we need to create out of passion and vision, but also want our art to be put to use and enjoyed, then for most of us, there has to be a lot more thought put into it - it must be sellable and marketed. How then do we know just what to do? Do we invest our mind and heart into a work knowing not the final destination, whether it will be good enough, admired, desired, purchased? For myself, the final answer is perhaps the final conclusion all inventors and innovators make. Of course I have to do it, mainly because I cannot, not do it. The desire to express the art in us, the vision that will not subside, must be put on the drawing or note pad - you must begin, be persistent and accept that our efforts may or may not result in success, but there is no other way to fully live than to keep trying, just one more time.
***** LINKS TO PRODUCTS COMING SOON!
I created a motivational sticker with the Thomas Edison quote.
I also designed a piece depicting Elon Musk and his life, his inventions, his history, his obsessions and there is an option to get one that includes one of his quotes. It art has a reference to Nikola Tesla's electricity contraption at the top. At the bottow is the "take-off" progress timer that Musk uses when he launches his spacecraft - in this case it is his date of birth.
