Jen CJun 22, 2025
Chris 🏳️‍🌈🧵🧝🏼

I read a post recently that decried making #art for art’s sake in such troubled times.

I heartily disagree.

Making art, no matter the purpose, brings joy and beauty into a world sorely lacking in both. Sure, art can be a form of protest, but let’s not be limiting the Muses when we need them most.

Jun 22, 2025 at 5:28pmWeb
Show threadوردي  🇵🇸Jun 22, 2025
@elfkin art is an instinct, it's what humans do, it doesn't need a purpose
Show threadPete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫Jun 23, 2025

@wardi @elfkin
And even if art needed a purpose, making art because you want to is a purpose.

Making art because you want to and some dickhead doesn't think you "should" is a *noble* purpose, uplifting the dignity of humankind.

Show threadPatsy (she/her)Jun 24, 2025

@petealexharris @wardi @elfkin

I would say that making art _is_ the purpose

It's the purpose of being alive, and it's why we have everything else that we have, to facilitate the making of art

(I say this not as an artist, but as an accountant, and a human)

Show thread@BegoniaArizonaJun 22, 2025
@elfkin I have been thinking of Eastern Europe during the years of Soviet occupation. When Czechoslovakia had its first free election they chose poet and playwright Vackav Havel for president. Why? Because nurturing the human spirit is essential to surviving tyranny. Art saves lives..
Show threadVassil Nikolov | Васил НиколовJun 23, 2025

Yes.

To expand the story, Havel was elected chiefly because he had proved that he was for freedom and against totalitarianism, with deeds and not only words.
And we can say that Art was important to his beliefs and his actions during the communist regime.

_________
VacLav

@BegoniaArizona @elfkin

Show thread@BegoniaArizonaJun 23, 2025
@vnikolov @elfkin thank you for elaboration and clarification
Show threadmuscleslave1Jun 22, 2025
@elfkin In times when the world keeps getting uglier, the only non-destructive response it to pump beauty into it.
Show threadGwen FisherJun 22, 2025
@elfkin yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you. We must never stop appreciating and creating beauty, even in times of chaos. I made a series of eight rainbow faux fur hats, giant beautiful ridiculous rainbow hats, partly as an act of artistic political defiance.
Show threadChris 🏳️‍🌈🧵🧝🏼Jun 22, 2025
@gwenbeads And you know that I love them! The perfect antidote to the poison which we are all forced to consume right now.
Show threadsamiamsamJun 22, 2025

@elfkin

Picasso's Guernica is an object lesson as to why the statement to not make art in troubled time is ridiculous

art is about emotion and expression

troubled times is also about emotion and expression

Show threadAlex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UKJun 22, 2025
@elfkin if people don't do that, there's a very strong danger that art is instead made for propaganda purposes (which has already happened a lot in WW2 and the Cold War)
Show threadMx Autumn Jun 22, 2025

@elfkin pouring one’s heart and soul into something for the sake of it, is quite often the point.

Art can be a silly cat cartoon that put a smile on someone’s face, an abstract painting of a bag of flour that only makes sense to the artists room mate or the very essence of raw, undiluted human emotion distilled and frozen in time as only a chainsaw taken to a bloody canvas can convey.

Show threadSarah SammisJun 23, 2025
@carbontwelve @elfkin I really want to draw or paint a bag of flour now. Damnit.
Show threadDoritJun 23, 2025
@elfkin the book for the question: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2162573W/Frederick
Frederick by Leo Lionni | Open Library

Frederick by Leo Lionni, unknown edition,

Open Library
Show threadRob 🏳️‍🌈 Rartsy HumanistJun 23, 2025

@doritc @elfkin based on your recommendation I just checked this out. I'm 53. Planning to read this children's book for the first time. (Got it in Spanish and English for language practice.)

I'm "on the side of" art for its own sake. I believe that message art primarily reaches those who are already in agreement & that open ended art may entice "busy" minds to slow down and reflect. I love all art & get irked by gate keeping.

Show threadDoritJun 23, 2025
@RMiddleton @elfkin (some) children‘s books are works of art, too — I sort of collect them (I‘m 57)
Show threadroboticus lastius (not a bot)Jun 23, 2025
@elfkin
Make art in troubled times.
Make art when you're feeling meh.
Make are when you're trapped.
Make art when you're lost.
Make art when you're losing it.
Make art when the situation feels hopeless.
Make art when the sun shines.
Make art in the dark.
Make art in the fog.
Make art out of fog.
Make art to induce the foggiest ideas.
Make art out of garbage.
Make art in the garage.
Make art in the garden.
Make art while gargling.
Make art with Gargamel.
Make art yesterday.
Make art now.
Show threadJo - pièce de résistanceJun 24, 2025
@elfkin
All Art is about sharing a pov with another. Period. So you are saying something by your choices no matter what you paint.
No need to disparage those who put a lot of research or meaning into their art, or to say it isn’t ’for arts sake’ as if ‘meaningless’ art is the only art that is for the sake of art. Play will always be a part of being creative. That is the process. But art is always about documenting and usually sharing a POV. How YOU see something.
Show threadJo - pièce de résistanceJun 24, 2025

@elfkin but this is how I feel. Just like Nina Simone. My work reflects it.
Her full quote:
https://youtube.com/shorts/_t3tSKWTdq4

“An artists duty is to reflect the times.”;

Before you continue to YouTube

Show threadSerMads the MadJun 24, 2025
@elfkin I second this wholeheartedly. I bought myself a drawing tablet back in January when I realized I was going to need a solid creative outlet that wasn't anything like my day job (game dev). It was one of the best decisions I've made in a long time. Tuning out the world and drawing for hours when I need it has done wonders for my mental health.
Show threadOctavia Con Amore  Succubard's LibraryJun 24, 2025
@elfkin @mads I can't fight like others can, but I've always hoped that my art can give comfort to those who can that need it 
Show threadHeather 👻Jun 24, 2025
@elfkin Being miserable isn't going to make the world happy. Least your world.
Show threaddonthatedontkillAug 30, 2025
@elfkin https://mastodon.social/@donthatedontkill/114315661571225559 Not sure if my post falls into the category you're talking about but for me the point wasn't to stop making art but to not let that be the beginning and the end of what you do in the face of fascism. The person's words were "make art because it makes fascists angry" and not only does this take an individualistic and atomized approach to politics rather than a systemic one, it's like, okay, they're angry. And....? What's changed? What did I materially accomplish?
Show threadChris 🏳️‍🌈🧵🧝🏼Aug 30, 2025
@donthatedontkill I don’t discount the power of protest art. However, I neither believe that art is *the* answer to fascism nor that artists living in a repressive society are obliged only to make “protest art.” To your point, protecting one’s community against fascism requires more than art. And limiting one’s creative endeavors to the explicitly political is, frankly, artistically stifling. The Muses have more to give than just commentary on contemporary politics.