March 7, 2010 – Someone asked me yesterday what my responsibility was a writer and an artist, and the answer came right out: to lift people up, to stimulate, entertain and sometimes provoke them. Expensive art is not selling right now, and some books aren’t either, and for me, that means the creative challenge is greater to connect – through stories, different kinds of writing, notecards and, if necessary, to crawl on my hands and knees to each reader and kiss them on the nose.
The creative has to reach people, and keep trying until they do. I am fortunate, not because I am more gifted than others, but because I am writing about a subject people care about these days – pets and companion animals. But even in that context, I have changed. I am writing fiction, short stories, children’s books, selling notecards. All of this involves many things – money, opportunity, but as much as anything else, a passionate desire to connect with people and spark an emotional response – through words, images, experience.
I told my friend that whenever people weren’t buying the creative works of people, it means the artist or writer was out of touch and needed to change. Maria did this with her potholders. I am trying it with new kinds of writing and photography and new ways of distributing it. That’s the joy of the creative life. You have to be creative. I think this responsibility is especially critical in challenging times when people are bombarded with disturbing information from unthinking people around the clock.
My job is to help people make sense of the feelings, light and images of the world. If I do my job, my work will find a home.