Artistic Values for 2025

I’ve done some work on consciously prioritizing my values, and that work has served me well. I know what I stand for, and that makes decision making easier.

But when I found myself in a creative/artistic lull at several points during 2024, I realized that I hadn’t ever thought about my values specifically in regards to creativity.

Maybe, in this age of AI-generated slop, it’s more important than ever for artists and creators to drill down on the WHY of their creative process. It’s a way to push back against the capitalistic, soulless, unconscious, theft-based, royalty-dodging, exploitative, human-devaluing “values” of the AI industry.

So for what it’s worth, here’s what I’ve come up with so far. I’m going to focus on these values in 2025:

1. Daily practice/habit

I’m not as fanatic about “write every day” as Stephen King, but I do try to write most days. I know I’m generally happier on days when I write (and/or make music), and of course there’s always the possibility that something I create might be halfway decent. But if I don’t put in the work, I get neither of those benefits.

2. Exploration

One of the great benefits of the act of creating something is that there are almost limitless possibilities. Prevailing norms of genre and style provide structure, but even those boundaries are meant to be broken–or at least tested. So you can pretty much do whatever you want. I like the analogy of making art as an exploration of possible spaces. For each work there is a universe of possibility, and the artist has the privilege of poking around to see if there’s anything good in there.

3. Service

My dad challenged me to ask this question: “Who do you serve?” Does your work serve the shareholders of a corporation? The owners of a privately held company? The mission of a nonprofit? Your family? The people in your community?

As artists, if we only chase commercial success, there’s a possibility we’re following the agenda of some corporation that’s trying to sell the most lowest-common-denominator “content units.” But if we ignore all markets and only serve our own artistic sensibilities, there’s a possibility of getting lost in the black hole of our own belly button.

So maybe there’s a Goldilocks space in between, where we serve others with our artistic efforts, but we don’t try to please everybody, or make the quickest buck, or force ourselves to work in styles and genres we don’t really like.

That’s it! What are you own artistic values?

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!