Why Your Art Is Exactly What We Need Right Now

Well, hey there, welcome to another episode of the Savvy Painter podcast. My name is Antrese Wood. I am your host.

If you have been listening to the podcast for a while, welcome back. If you're new here, I am so glad that you have found the podcast. If you're an artist who wants practical, tactical tips to create a meaningful art practice that is fulfilling and supports you, you are in the right place.

In this episode, we're going to talk a little bit about what's going on right now. I know that the world feels really heavy right now. It's chaotic, and a lot of people are wondering, "How does my art even matter in all of this?" I've gotten a lot of emails and questions about this. Maybe you've also thought, "Who am I to create right now?" Or even worse, "Why should I even bother?"

But what I want to show you today is that maybe you're asking the wrong question. Instead of wondering, "Who am I to make art?" I want you to consider the opposite—"Who are you not to make art right now?" I know, I know—let that settle in.

The thing is, art isn’t just about the artist who creates it. It’s not just about you. It’s about connection. It’s about relief, both for you and for the people who need what you create. It’s about staying human when everything around us pushes us to disconnect. And yet, creating right now can feel nearly impossible, and I totally get that.

When we're feeling really stressed, when we're feeling scared, uncertain, or overwhelmed, the creative instinct might be to shut down. That part of your brain that allows for play, curiosity, and innovation—it goes offline. When that happens, it’s really easy to think that you’ve lost your spark or that you're just not motivated enough. But here’s the truth: it’s not about motivation. It’s about safety. Right now, a lot of us do not feel safe.

Today, we’re going to start at the beginning by acknowledging your emotions without letting them control you—not ignoring them, not pushing them down, but actually feeling them, tending to them, and understanding that your emotions do not define you. Because until you acknowledge that, creativity is always going to feel just out of reach.

This is how we make art when it feels like the world is burning down—not by forcing ourselves through it, but by grounding ourselves first. By remembering that art is more than a transaction. It's more than likes and sales. It’s a way of being in the world. It’s a way of understanding the world, making sense of it. It is how we connect. It’s how we process and how we fight against isolation.

If you are feeling stuck right now, overwhelmed, or if you’re doubting the point of making your art at all, stay with me. We're going to break this down together because now, more than ever, we need your work.

Recently, I was coaching an artist, and she came in just feeling overwhelmed, discouraged, frustrated, and uncertain about her role in this world like, "Why should I even bother creating work right now?"

And it really struck me. We had a long conversation about it, and I was able to help her through this, but she's not the only person that has come to me with this recently. There is just this heaviness, and I know that all of us—or almost all of us—are feeling it.

She asked me, "How do you do this? How do you show up in your studio? How do you show up in these coaching sessions, seemingly unbothered by it all?" That couldn’t be further from the truth.

The truth is, I am equally disturbed—sometimes outraged and furious—at what I see going on in the world, in the United States, in our government, in exactly what is happening right now, and just watching everything unravel. It does feel overwhelming.

The first thing that I always do—well, I mean, I might rage against it. I might internally or externally experience the same emotions that you might be feeling about what we're seeing happening in the United States right now.

And this isn’t just impacting the United States. I'm in another country. I'm watching this from afar, and I'm watching how this is all impacting other countries and our relationships with other countries. I'm bringing this up just to sort of name what is feeling so heavy for a lot of us. A lot of us are feeling a lot of really big emotions—huge ones, just to put it lightly.

Step one is always to acknowledge what it is that you're feeling. Acknowledge your emotions without letting them control you. And this isn't about being a machine. This isn't about being mechanical. This is about being as human as you are, feeling the feelings, sitting with yourself, and allowing the emotion to be there and then to pass through, because that's what gives you options. That's what allows you to decide with intention what you want to do with this.

We're going to talk more about this later, but it never helps to ignore or dismiss what you are actually and truly feeling. That is what causes, I think, bigger problems and what shuts you down with your art.

Listen, I know that some of you want to believe that your art doesn't matter right now. I don't want to force you to believe differently, but I do want to introduce the possibility that you are mistaken when you have this thought that "My art doesn't matter." That's what I'm going to focus this episode on.

I want to focus on how to ensure that you are feeling supported in and of yourself, that you are supporting yourself, that you are having your own back while it feels like everything is so heavy and so big. And also so that you have the energy to be a part of the solution—to be a part of helping other people, to be a part of bringing in the love and the goodness in this world.

There is the temptation, of course, to feel overwhelmed by it, to feel discouraged, and to want to believe that your art doesn't matter, that it's not making a contribution. I want to invite you to consider the opposite: "What if my art does truly matter?"

And to genuinely understand this, I think it helps to pull back the lens and to look at it from—look at your art, look at what you're creating, look at your studio practice, look at this experience that you're having from a different location.

We naturally are self-centered. And I realize that the phrase "self-centered" has very negative connotations, and it very often gets confused with being selfish. Let me quickly explain what I mean by that.

We naturally consider the world and our circumstances through the lens of our own self and our own self-interest. We consider things naturally based off of how we are impacted or how we are experiencing something, AKA, "What does this mean to me?" and "How is this affecting me?"

So that's what I mean when we are thinking about it from a very self-centered point. It is part of how we survive. It is self-preservation. However, when it comes to the question of our art, just for a moment, I want you to set that aside—that idea that it is selfish or arrogant—because so often when we do that, it turns into this launch of the inner critic and self-judgment.

You've likely, very likely—I'm just going to take a wild guess based off of all the people that I talk to and coach and everybody in Growth Studio—I'm going to go out on a limb and take the guess that you probably have had more than enough practice with self-judgment and criticism and generally being kind of mean to yourself.

We're going to shift the viewpoint just a tad. I think underneath this question of "Does my work matter at this point in time?" the underlying question really is "Who am I to do this work? Who am I to be the artist that is creating right now?"

And I'm going to quote Toni Morrison. I love, love, love this quote. I actually have it on my phone as a screensaver right now. You might be familiar with it. I've seen it pop up a lot lately, and here it is.

"This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There's no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."

Like many people, I find this quote very inspiring, and it sort of reminds me of the importance of what it is that we do. But here's the thing about this quote—I want to put it into context because, out of context, it almost feels like, "Just shove your way through it. There's no room for anything other than doing the work."

But this quote comes from an essay that Toni Morrison wrote after George Bush was elected—sometime in 2004, not 2024, which is where we are now. Here's what she said about this: The day after Christmas in 2004, following the presidential re-election of George Bush, Toni Morrison writes this: “I'm staring out of the window in an extremely dark mood, feeling helpless. Then a friend, a fellow artist, calls to wish me happy holiday and he asks, ‘How are you?’ And instead of, ‘Oh, fine. You?’ I blurt out the truth. ‘Not well. Not only am I depressed, I can't seem to work—to write. It's as though I am paralyzed, unable to write anything more in the novel I've begun, and I've never felt this way before. But the election…’ I'm about to explain with further detail when he interrupts, shouting, ‘No, no, no, no, no! This is precisely the time when artists go to work, not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That is our job.’"

Toni Morrison continues, saying: "I felt foolish the rest of the morning, especially when I recalled the artists who had done their work in gulags, prison cells, hospital beds who did their work while hounded, exiled, reviled, pilloried, and those who were executed."

So Toni Morrison then reflects even further on it, and that’s when she comes to this conclusion—when she adopts what her friend said to her and says: "This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."

And she continues: "I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important to not ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge, even wisdom. Like art."

I wanted to read that whole thing. I know that was a little bit long to be read to, but what I think is really important about this is that it shows the context of when she said that, that she was having doubts herself, that she was experiencing many of the same emotions and feelings that I know a lot of people are experiencing right now. That’s the conclusion that she came to, and it was another artist who helped her get there.

This is why I wanted to quote this, because I think it's so important that, A) this feeling that a lot of us are having is absolutely human. I would be sort of worried if you weren't having it. And B) how important it is that we lift each other up and support each other, especially right now.

Speaking of which, I want to give credit where credit is due. When I was trying to research where exactly Toni Morrison had written that or said that, it took me a while to track it down. It should be no surprise to me because I love this website, and it is The Marginalian.

Maria Popova is an incredible writer. It's her website. She's been doing this for decades and decades, and there's so much incredible content on there about writing, about thinking, about creativity, about art. It's just chock-full of goodness.

I just wanted to, A) acknowledge that that's finally where I tracked down the context of this Toni Morrison quote, and also, B) shout out to Maria Popova. If you are not familiar with that website, I would highly suggest that you check it out and get lost in it. It's so much fun—way better than scrolling on social media, especially right now.

Okay, back to our topic at hand. If you're struggling to make art right now, you are not alone. As Toni Morrison says, "This is exactly the time for artists to create." Your art is not frivolous, it's not pointless—it is absolutely necessary. By the end of this episode, you're going to know exactly how to reconnect with your art and why your work matters, especially right now.

The first thing I'm always going to recommend is that you acknowledge how you're truly feeling—just like Toni Morrison did, right? The impulse is to say, "I'm okay, I'm fine," when truly that's not the truth about what's happening. When we shove our emotions down, deny them, or pretend that they're not that big of a deal, I guarantee you they will come back up to bite you.

The first thing to do is to acknowledge that. Calm your nervous system down, be truthful about what's happening inside you, and directly tend to that part of yourself with love, patience, empathy, and understanding. A lot of times, when we are feeling anything negative, we want to avoid feeling it or pretend like it doesn't matter—and that never works.

You might legitimately be in a place where you need to take it slow and easy with your art, and that might look like simple sketchbook play just for the joy of it. When you are activated, stressed, and overwhelmed, it's nearly impossible to be creative. The part of your brain that allows you to do that—the part of your brain that allows you to play, innovate, be curious, and creative—is completely offline in support of what your brain thinks is going on, those emotions that we just talked about.

So allowing yourself to take deep breaths and calm your nervous system down will bring that back online. It's not the moment when you're feeling triggered, activated, or overwhelmed to be aggressive with yourself. That is exactly the moment to be empathetic and sympathetic to what you're feeling and what your needs are.

I know a lot of you will think—because this is the typical objection to being softer with yourself, to being sympathetic, to being empathetic—"Oh, but I've been pampering myself for too long, and it's time to get to the important work, all the big grand ideas, the giant series, whatever it is that's been on my mind."

You will get to that, and you already are getting to that. Sometimes you have to slow down in order to speed up. If you're feeling that high-stressed energy, that sort of graspy feeling, it is the signal that it's time to slow down. I know it's counterintuitive, but until you deal with that, your creativity won't be there for you.

This doesn't mean that you need to spend weeks or months in a cocoon, hiding from the world. You can change faster than you think when you connect on a deep level with your authentic self. I should note that there's a big, big difference between slowing down to hide from yourself and slowing down to connect with yourself.

What I'm talking about here is slowing down to connect with yourself. In order to make art when it truly feels like the world is burning down, you need to first calm your nervous system. Be truthful about what's happening inside you. Directly tend to that part of yourself with love, patience, empathy, and understanding.

Impatience, I think—and what I’ve found—is often avoidance, because what is underneath that is we want the result without having done the work. We want calm and serenity in the studio without acknowledging what the real fear is and dealing with it. Instead, we push and we yell and we judge and we criticize ourselves, hoping that by some miracle, we'll suddenly see the light and do whatever it is that we hope to have done.

We're never going to feel good about the work that we create until we understand, on a deep level, how important the work is that we're doing. Otherwise, we're just going through the motions and putting paint on a canvas. That is exactly the piece that is most often missing, and that is exactly why so often you feel like, "What I'm doing doesn't matter." It's because you're not seeing how your art connects us all as human beings.

Isn't that what we need more of right now in this epidemic of disconnection, isolation, self-aggression, and aggression toward others? It starts with the artist. When you connect with yourself, when you lose the self-aggression, you do the work to build trust in yourself so that you can experience the safety and security that only you can bring to yourself. Then you can share that with your community and the people around you—also known as your collectors.

The reason it feels so hard to create work right now is because a lot of us are not feeling safe. If your primary needs seem to be in jeopardy, then you're triggered, and your fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response will kick in. The not creating your work or the avoiding your work—that's the freeze response. You're not alone in that.

The biggest resistance is to tend to yourself, to create your art, to connect with your friends, neighbors, community, and collectors. The biggest way that you can resist what is happening right now in the world, and in the United States in particular, is to tend to yourself, to create the art, to create your art, to connect with yourself, and then connect with your friends, neighbors, community, and collectors. This is how we spread that community and love.

It's the opposite of what has divided our communities and our neighborhoods. However big you see that neighborhood—it could be a few houses, a few blocks, a state, a country, a hemisphere, or the entire globe—that's your neighborhood. It starts with us. We are the change-makers, and now is not the time to stop making your art.

This is how we support ourselves, our neighborhood, and our community. Hate wins when we give up on our humanity, our expression, our sense of safety, and our sense of self. Protect that at all costs in your own studio, and then share it with the people around you.

Make your art the sanctuary that fulfills you, that connects you back to your core self, that connects you back to love. That is why your art is so important—because it does all of that.

When you give yourself that safety and you give yourself that trust, you are infinitely more capable of helping other people. You might be inspiring people, you might be actively doing things, you might be in and out, but regardless, maintaining your own sense of security is the first step.

Everybody has a role to play, and spending more time in your studio than you do on Instagram or watching the news or keeping track of every single thing—it's your art that's going to keep you sane. It's creating the art that's going to allow you to be there for yourself and for your community. That, my friend, truly matters.

You provide a sanctuary for yourself, and you also provide respite for other people—a rest, a break, a reminder that we are human, that we are empathetic, that there is beauty in this world, that there is love in this world, that we are still human beings underneath it all. We need that. We need you. We need everyone to contribute. It matters. It really, really matters now more than ever.

Okay, that's what I have for you this week. Go make your art. Make it for yourself, and make it for the rest of us.

If you want to take what you are learning here on the Savvy Painter podcast even further, join us in Growth Studio. Growth Studio is a unique community of artists. We meet multiple times a week for live coaching, critiques, and demos. Just go to savvypainter.com/join.