What Is Your Art?

My friend John wrote something that really disturbed me, totally out of character.

Everyone who knows John is quick to describe him as “a very wise man.” Recently John decided to share his Wisdom Book, as he calls it, in a weekly email with all his clients and friends.

He wrote a brief introduction to his Wisdom Book email by saying…

“I distribute this email every week. For years, I have kept a wisdom book in which I write down what I came across this week that seemed wise or smart. I have a preference for wisdom said well. In the middle of 2023, I began distributing my wisdom book, and then people asked me to write a few lines explaining why I included each comment. 

“Very little in my wisdom book is original. I have had very few original thoughts in my life, anyway. I don't track all of the sources because this is a private enterprise. Occasionally, I mention the source because it is helpful in understanding the point. 

“I find keeping this book incredibly helpful because it makes me wisdom acquisitive. I am always aware of good ideas that come across my mind. To be clear, I keep the wisdom book for me, not you. I just share it with you. 

“This weekly email is, in that sense, a peek into my mind, what I have read or thought about lately. You might track themes, business, leadership, strategy, faith, and relationships. It's the things I care about. 

“Thanks for reading and occasionally interacting with me about an entry. I enjoy the feedback. Have a great week.”

When I read:

"To be clear, I keep the wisdom book for me, not you. I just share it with you," it disturbed me. It disturbed me because it sounded selfish. “This isn’t John. He gives people the shirt off his back. He meets with anyone who seeks his help,” I thought.

Yet his comment of him doing this wisdom book “for him, not me” wasn’t necessary. Why did he write this in the email introduction? Why did he think he needed to tell me this, to make a point of saying this to me?

I talked to a mutual friend about this comment. He didn’t even recall reading the “…for me, not you.” comment. But when I pointed it out to him, he was puzzled by why John would write this, too. I put this bothersome comment in the back of my mind and let my subconscious work on it. 

Out of nowhere, the answer popped into my mind.

Wisdom collecting is John's art. It is precious and important to him. If I might benefit from his wisdom collecting, that's great. If I don't think it is important or helpful, he doesn’t care. He does it for him, not me. It is his art. 

I believe personal art might defined as something that one thinks about, has a maniacal interest in, and either creates or collects daily. It is the lens through which one sees the world. It is the expression of the essence of who one is.

Then I thought of more examples of people I know who have a personal art.

My sister, the artist.

My sister was one of South Florida's premier artists for three decades (1980-2010). She expressed herself through oil painting, primarily large pieces. She was formally trained in Venice, Italy, when she studied at NYU’s Master of Fine Arts program.

But my sister always knew she was an artist. She became so well known that even Neiman Marcus commissioned her to do paintings for three of their new stores in Florida. She sold a lot of work and produced more than 1,000 pieces.

When she started her profession, the galleries representing her were slow to find buyers for her paintings. The businessman in me told her, "You need to paint what people want. Then you'll realize success."

She quickly told me, "I don't care if they buy my paintings. I paint for me. I would rather starve than compromise my art. It is my art. If they buy a painting that means they appreciate my art. I'm not in painting business. I am an artist."

When she told me this over forty years ago, I didn't understand it. It sounded so wacky to me that I told her, "Go forth and starve."

But now, at seventy-one, I get it. Every creator or collector has their own art within them. It is deeply personal and very important to them. They don’t do it to achieve commercial success. They do it because it is who they are—who God made them to be. It is not about sales or followers or likes; it is about creating art, their art. It is about being true to oneself.

I read a book recently which brought me to this insight. 

The book Erasure was written by Percival Everett. Last year, the film American Fiction, which was based on the book, was nominated for best picture. 

The main character of Erasure is a black author. He is a Harvard graduate and an English professor at a California university. His father was an MD, and his brother and sister are both MDs. He is the outlier in the family, his mother’s favorite, but thought of by the rest of his family as a little “out there.” They all know he is brilliant but can’t understand why he wastes his time as a writer.

He writes erudite treatises that few people buy. His agent constantly tries to persuade him to write something more people will be interested in. 

One day, he walks into an interview with a highly educated female black author who is being praised for her best-selling book. The interviewer asks her to read from the book, which is written in the Ebonic slang of the “hood,” as she describes it. She finishes the reading, and the interviewer gushes praise, and the audience, mostly white people, gives the author a standing ovation. 

He sees what is happening in the room and concludes she is a sell-out. “This isn’t her art. She is capitalizing on white guilt” is his conclusion. 

He tells his agent how disgusting he found her work. The agent tells him if you want to be a successful author, you need to write in more of a “black voice.”

“I do write in a black voice. I am black, and It is my writing. You’re telling me I’m not black enough?” he asks his white agent.

I won’t tell you the rest of the story because I’ll spoil it for you. Long story short, he is constantly tempted to write what the market wants. This struggle is exacerbated by his need for money to help his mom after his father’s death. 

This book and movie showed me what it is like to be in someone’s head who is pressured to ultimately compromise their art.

Once I became aware of the concept of personal art, I also saw it in another situation that bothered me when I heard it.

Elon Musk was being interviewed. The topic was his politically incorrect “tweets.” They blew up the woke audience and the media. After some discussion on why he tweets his views, the interviewer asked, “If you keep this up, the advertisers will put their ad dollars from X, and that will have a big impact on your revenue.”

Elon Musk shot back, “F___k the advertisers.”

The guy just bought Twitter for $40b. His revenue was going backward along with the company’s valuation. But he didn’t care if it meant he had to be careful what he said publicly. If he believed it, he would say it, and the hell with the consequences.

Elon’s art is his personal freedom of speech. I respect him for this. Everything else he does is commercially oriented. His freedom of speech is his proverbial “third rail.”

The other day a friend I was discussing this with asked me, “What is your art?”

This simple question stopped me cold. I have been so commercially driven all my life, following the rules of business and practicing product-market fit. My first thought was, “Do I have a personal art, or am I always selling myself out to the market?”

I came to realize I do have a “third rail.” 

My writing is my art. It is my personal expression. I think about life, people, and circumstances through a Biblical worldview of why it is what it is. Then, I write about it and share it with you, my reader. If you like what I write, and it helps you, I am pleased. If you don’t like what I write, that’s OK, too. I wrote for it for me, not you.