Why We Make Art, part 1
- sharmondavidson
- Jul 3
- 5 min read
03 JULY, 2026
Why Do We Make Art?
I don't remember exactly what got me thinking about this, but as I began to delve into it, I thought it might be a good topic for a blog post. Now, I'm not so sure. Why? Because there are as many answers to the question as there are artists. It's much more complex than I ever dreamed it would be, but I decided to try and tackle it nonetheless. I may be sorry, but here goes...
A Few Assumptions
It's all art, okay?
1.Roman bronze dodecahedrons; 2. Roman glass vessels; 3. Wheatfield - A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan 1982 by Agnes Denes; 4. Phaistos disk, fired clay from Crete, 2000 BCE; 5. Fountain by Marcel Duchamp 6. Comedian, 2019 by Maurizio Cattelan
First of all, I'm not going to try to define "art" here, because that is a whole other very complicated can of worms. People have argued forever about this, and probably always will. For the purposes of this post, I will assume that if someone makes it and calls it art, it is art. Here is how I justify that:
"First of all, what is art? The definition for art that I have come up with, which seems to work best for me, is that anything anyone calls art is art. This comes from my belief that there is nothing intrinsic about art. We cannot do a chemical analysis to determine if something is art or not. Instead, I feel like calling something “art” is really just a subjective way of indicating value—which could be aesthetic, cultural, monetary, and so on."
Secondly, I'm only looking at why humans make art. There's much debate over whether other animals can actually do so. This goes back, again, to the definition of art itself. I suspect, however, that if the creations of other species can be called art, they may have very different reasons for making them than humans do.
Many Reasons For Making Art
I can't say that I've looked at everything pertaining to why we make art. People who claim to have studied it always seem to settle on some number - four reasons, or seven, or ten, or whatever. I'll ty to distill these down for you by combining those that seem to be the same, and separating them by their distinctions. I don't know what number this will result in.
Love of Beauty - We want to appreciate aesthetic experiences and recognize underlying patterrns and order in our world. To me, this applies particularly to decoration; you could make a plain container to store your wine in, yet humans feel compelled to paint or carve our tools with beautiful scenes or figures.
Evoke an Emotional Response - Artists often may wish to draw attention to beautiful or remarkable things people might otherwise miss. Someone might feel awed by the sight of tall, majestic mountains, and want to share that sense of awe by making a painting depicting them.
"The beauty one can find in art is one of the pitifully few real and lasting products of human endeavor." - J. Paul Getty
Self-Expression - We have a need to articulate or communicate unspoken emotions, thoughts, or stories - in short, to share our inner world. I believe this is one of the most important and compelling reasons humans create art.
All of us have stories to tell but sometimes words fail us. Sometimes we know what we are trying to communicate, we feel it down in our bones, but we need a different language to say it. Art is that back channel. It lets us connect fragments of thoughts that don’t otherwise connect. - Sophie Campbell
Escape - This one is pretty self-explanatory. What do we escape from? The answers are endless, but right now, for me, I would say it's mostly the craziness of what's going on in our country and around the world.
“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” - Picasso
"We have art in order not to die of the truth." -Friedrich Nietzsche
To Experience Flow - Flow is the mental state of complete absorption in a challenging task. Fully immersed, we forget everything around us, and are both extremely productive as well as at peace. Our conscious minds disengage, and our brainwaves align to something like the ones inherent in meditation. Time passes strangely - I usually think I've been working for a short time, only to find that several hours have gone by.
Healing and Catharsis - Sometimes art-making is a way to express emotions we aren't able to verbalize. This is the underlying premise behind the practice of art therapy, a specialized mental health profession that combines the creative process with active psychotherapy. Making art can be an effective way of releasing pain, darkness, and trauma.
"I realised WHY I need to create, why my art is so important to me … it has become my sanctuary and safe place. My respite. I can shut the world out and regroup. It is therapy, my own art therapy." - Kim Herringe
"The medical profession has come a long way in recognizing the healing benefits of art. My hope is that some day the arts wil be considered as essential in everyone's lives as breathing fresh air, eating clean foods and engaging in physical exercise." - Renée Phillips, (The Healing Power of Art and Artists)
I realize that numbers 3, 4, 5, and 6 are closely interrelated. Some might say that they're all one reason, but I feel there are some important differences. Perhaps we could say that escape, experiencing flow, and healing/catharsis are corollaries to self-expression. Anyway, this is why I grouped them together.
Preserving Memories - Art-making can be a way of capturing the moments that matter. We make art that reminds us of important events and people in our lives, and they allow us to mentally travel to those times long past. An example of this is my collage Forgotten Memory, below.
Everything in this piece has personal meaning for me, such as the little girl bent over her drawing, which is me (of course), the paper dolls my grandmother used to make for me, and the dress patterns that remind me of her sewing. The plant with its roots, the 'portal' into the woods, the fossil, and the map and poem fragments all relate to important parts of my childhood.
Pleasure and Recreation - or, as one of the artists on Quora said, because it's fun! But once you scratch the surface by asking why it's fun, you get all these other reasons:
"There is something joyful to me about making art, connecting hand, head and heart.
Creating something from nothing. Art making can feel like a personal playground. Enjoying the tactile nature of art materials, inviting in a sense of possibility, of risk, of adventure... Creating my own small universe of colour and pattern. Doing something for the sheer fun of doing it, with no expectation of the outcome. Creating a place where I am myself, where I meet myself and where I understand myself." - Helen Wells Artist
Stay Tuned For Part 2
Once again this post has gotten too long, so I'm splitting it into two parts. Who knew there could be so many reasons for making art? Part 2 will be coming up soon, I promise!
Until then, I wish you peace, love, and art.
References
Four Reasons Art is Made - and How They shape the World by Spencer Greenberg
Why Do You Make Art? (Quora.com)
Why Do Humans Make Art? , Nathan H. Lents, Ph.D. (Psychology Today)
This is Why You Make Art, (World of Creatives, YouTube)
Why Do We Make Art: 10 Reasons to Create, (FromLight2Art, YouTube)
Why We Make Art , by Jeremy Adam Smith, Jason Marsh (Greater Good Magazine)
What is a Flow State and What are Its Benfits? (headspace.com)
About Art Therapy, (American Art Therapy Association)