So I’m in the office breakroom, just standing there, minding my own business, trying to get a cup of that tasty, lukewarm coffee-flavored watwr when these two ladies stroll in and start talking. Not near me; next to me. RIGHT next to me. Like, I’m suddenly the potted plant in their conversation.
I’m the ficus. I don’t exist.
And one of them goes, “I’m retiring soon … gonna help my husband with his painting business.”
Okay, nice. You hear “painting business,” and you think ladders, tarps, beige walls, fumes that make you think the Beatles were right. But no. Her husband is an artist. He paints FOR A LIVING.
“Lucky bastard,” I think.
She says, “Well, he doesn’t want me in the studio too much because he needs space to create.”
Alright, solid. Makes sense. Creative people need silence, solitude, and a room with just the right kind of despair lighting. The usual.
Then the other woman leans in with this nuclear-level nonsense and says, “Well, HE’S got the easy part. All he has to do is create. YOU’RE doing the real work!”
WHAT!? All he has to do is create!?
Listen, sweetheart. Creating is not the easy part. Creating is spiritual plumbing with a hammer. It’s waking up at 3 a.m. with a brilliant idea and forgetting it by 3:05 because your brain decided it needed to think about whether penguins have knees.
“Creating is the easy part” is something only people who’ve never created a damn thing say, amd they say it brazenly, without shame or self-awareness. You think art just oozes out like soft-serve? Like he sits down, lights a candle, farts a masterpiece and hits print?
No! Creation is torture with a side of taxes. It’s bleeding your soul out through your eyeballs and hoping someone on Etsy buys it for $35. And that’s if they don’t leave a one-star review because it “didn’t match the couch.”
You know what’s easy? Filing paperwork. You know exactly how many forms there are. You know where they go. You know when you’re done. Try creating something from scratch. It’s like trying to birth a unicorn on a deadline with no epidural.
And artists? Real artists? They’re haunted. They see beauty and pain and truth in the shape of a coffee stain. They feel everything. That’s the job. To feel. Constantly. It’s like being emotionally lactose intolerant in a world made of cheese.
But sure, yeah, he’s got the “easy part.” All he has to do is pour his entire essence into a canvas, risk his mental health, manage the crushing fear that he’ll never be relevant, and then sell his soul on Instagram for algorithm points. Easy peasy.
Meanwhile, I’m standing there with my sad cup of breakroom crap in a cup, stuck in this verbal drive-by, thinking, “I just wanted coffee. Not a TED Talk on how to accidentally insult every artist who ever lived.”
So here’s my PSA, friends. Next time you think creating is easy, try staring at a blank page for three hours and see if your brain doesn’t start chewing its own leg off. And when you’re done, let the artist work.
And give him the good coffee.