Nick Cave shares advice to artists feeling uninspired by “cruel” world events
Nick Cave has passed on poignant advice to the many artists who claim that they feel uninspired to create given the current state of the world.
On his website, Red Hand Flies, the Australian musician received messages from two individuals who voiced their apprehension about creating. One said, “Muses have left me, and I have lost all motivation to create.” Meanwhile, the other said he didn’t know “how to reconnect or reconcile making art in a world made of war and cruelty, how would painting a fucking picture ever help.”
Cave responded, “What makes our particular job so exceptional that it requires inspiration or a muse to do it? We are artists, and we labour in the service of others. It is not something we do only if and when we feel motivated – we create because it is our responsibility to do so. In this respect, our occupation is no different than that of most people.”
He continued, “Does an ordinary adult go to work only if they feel in the mood? Do doctors? Do labourers? Do teachers? Do taxi drivers? We are duty-bound to do our job, like everyone else, because the space we occupy depends upon our participation and breaks down if we don’t. A committed artist cannot afford the luxury of revelation. Inspiration is the indolent indulgence of the dabbler. Muses, Tam, are for losers!”
Cave then addressed the comment that painting a picture won’t help the current state of the world. He said, “The idea that you can’t paint because the world is ‘Made of war and cruelty’ has to be the lamest and most faint-hearted excuse not to work I have ever heard, Dan.”
The Bad Seeds leader added, “How will painting a fucking picture help? – It will help because art is the noble and necessary rejoinder to the sins of the world. When the world rushes toward us with all its streaming wounds – wanting, needing – do we cover our eyes and shrink away, do we sit and wring our hands in despair, do we run and hide, or do we hasten toward it, like we hasten toward an injured child, with our arms outstretched?”
Cave concluded by saying, “If we are to call ourselves artists then we must avoid the myriad excuses that present themselves and do our job. Yes, the world is sick, and yes it can be cruel, but it would be a whole lot sicker and a whole lot crueller if it were not for painters and filmmakers and songwriters – the beauty-makers – wading through the blood and muck of things, whilst reaching skyward to draw down the very heavens themselves.”
Meanwhile, it was recently announced that Cave and his longtime collaborator, Warren Ellis, have been recruited by director Sam Taylor-Johnson to produce the soundtrack for the upcoming Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black. The movie is set to be released in cinemas on April 12th.
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