On kids and making art
/An observation from British novelist JG Ballard, which I recently ran across at writer Austin Kleon’s blog here:
“Cyril Connolly, the 50s critic and writer, said that the greatest enemy of creativity is the pram in the hall, but I think that was completely wrong. It was the enemy of a certain kind of dilettante life that he aspired to, the man of letters, but for the real novelist the pram in the hall is the greatest ally—it brings you up sharp and you realise what reality is all about. My children were a huge inspiration for me. Watching three young minds creating their separate worlds was a very enriching experience.”
Kleon notes that Ballard, whose wife died unexpectedly in their early thirties, raised his three children as a widower.
There’s a lot to think about here, and someday I’d love to develop a full-length, completely thought-out essay on the topic of family, creativity, and the pernicious myth of the genius whose art excuses his neglect of his family. (Kleon links to a pretty good takedown of that myth here.)
But for the time being, suffice it to say that good art is directed other-ward, and the good artist begins with a desire to show, to tell, to share. As Roger Scruton explains it in Why Beauty Matters, the child’s desire to share his or her vision gives us one of the purest expressions of the artistic impulse we can find. That desire is an innate link to our fellowmen—binding them to us and, perhaps more importantly, us to them—and we break it at our peril. As Kleon puts it, “Art is for life, not the other way around.”
And remember that there is no fellowman closer than your own flesh and blood.
My children have greatly enriched my life, not to mention my artistic perspectives and impulses, and they are, after all, the only thing I’ve made that will last forever. I can always find ways to work around them—and, indeed, I have. But if I ever find myself in the position of having to choose between them and my art, to hell with my art. Literally.
