3 min and 20 sec to read, 832 words

Great artists are inspiring. The other night after watching a documentary on Hulu, it was getting late and I was getting sleepy. After the movie ended another documentary auto-played. It caught my attention and I started watching and forgot all about sleep. 

The documentary is called ‘The World According to Allee Willis’. I had never heard of Allee Willis, but WOW! I have heard her songs before. Great songs, and lots of them. What an interesting and prolific artist she was. Just incredible. Her drive to create things, all kinds of things was indeed incredible. And yes her story is just simply inspiring. 

We Need to Hear About Great Artists

As artists, we need to hear stories about great artists. In a wold that feels like the arts are becoming less and less important, I want to remember that art IS important. It teaches us to not only become more well-rounded human beings, but to think more critically and to expand our world beyond what is right in front of us everyday.

There might be me a more eloquent way of saying that, but I’m hoping you get the gist. With AI becoming more prevalent and the way it “learns” from real art, it feels like another layer of how we respect and appreciate the arts is rotting away. 

I do hope that proper laws are put into place to protect artists against AI companies from using the art created by real artists and using it to create more crap to clutter up an already crowded internet. But I digress… 

Back to the Allee Willis Documentary

Back to Allee Willis…you should watch the documentary. It’s really well done and we get to know Allee and are invited into her world of songwriting, friends, painting, elaborate party-throwing, art-filled Hollywood life. Her entire house was a piece of art! She just created stuff all the time.

And her songs…OMG…huge hit after huge hit! You’ll see. But suffice it to say, she was an incredible songwriter who did a lot of ground breaking stuff and wrote in all kinds of genres. Even Broadway. She was a content creator before the internet. Literally ahead of her time. She was describing what’s happening now like in the 80’s!? Talking about creating ‘content’ even before the internet.

Anyway, she was a revolutionary artist. Makes me think, what the heck am I doing not writing everyday? Or singing, or even doing some painting again. Just because. Not for a specific outcome, but because I love it and love to make stuff. 

I Need to Slow Down and Appreciate Art and Artists More

I feel like my attention span getting shorter. I don’t want that. I want to take time to read a book or go to a museum or even watch a movie. I’ve never been a movie buff but I don’t watch many movies becuase I’m always in a hurry.

It feels like Art used to be a larger part of our lives even though we have ‘content’ flowing at us 24/7. I recognize that dopamine hit. It feels good to numb out and watch my favoritie YouTube creators or scroll IG or shop my favorite apps. What a cozy place to be and then I don’t have to be in reality.

But great art compels us to think and to assess our own reality. And maybe see it differently. Be more in the moment. Great art is still out there even though AI is just producing more and more slop to clutter up an already crowded internet making it even harder for the real artisits to cut through.

But as artistis always have, they will still create in tough times. Being an artistst has never been easy. But as we know most artists create stuff because they have to. We have to.

Sing, play, paint, sculpt, design, draw, write, whatever it is you do, do it. Do it becuase you have to and becuase you want to. And again, without expectations. That in and of itself takes a lot of practice. But we have to try.

I Need to Make More Art

What do you love to make? Go make it. Be willing to make bad stuff. Make it for yourself. Maybe the world will want to see it or hear it, maybe not. Who cares, keep making stuff until you know you want to show it to somebody, then give it to the world. 

In a world full of AI crap, we need real art. We need real voices, real songs, real points-of-view, real novels, movies with real actors, real poets to help us to see the world differently, a paining to help us remember why life is beautiful. We need art. We need your art, your voice, your song, or whatevery you make.

Happy Creating,

Amy

https://www.amyhailstone.com