I have painted and sketched all my life and I've written for most of my adult life.
I'm always motivated to do these things because of some kind of exciting stimulus. Sometimes I am very anxious or depressed and creative expression tends to exorcise the demons, so to speak, by giving me an expressive outlet and channeling energy into something productive. Sometimes I just need to explore an idea and doing it creatively gives a kind of structure and direction to it. And sometimes I want to just play with the medium I am using and see how well I can translate an idea in my mind into something physical. It's usually a thrilling process.
I've taken a few art classes through the Smithsonian, an institution that has collected some of the most renowned art in the world, and...wow. The classes have been instructed like occupational therapy, sort of in the vein of Bob Ross, with zen-like instructors speaking in meditative, hypnotic voices (which for some reason makes me feel like I'm in a cult) and being constantly reassuring that anything you do is ohhhhh-kaaay.
It's very weird to me, contrary to my idea of what most art is and why most people who make art do it. My MFA in creative writing program was high-pressur and full of neurotic, anxious people, and the instructors were partially supportive but also very much of the opinion that art is serious work that requires discipline, intellect, insight and inspiration, and that expression is urgent or else don't waste your time. My department chair even told us that we should avoid psychedelics if we want to be artists because psychedelics make people feel like everything is OK, and art is generated by feeling that nothing is OK. He said if we want to be happy people who live happy but unproductive lives, we should take psychdelics.
What is your general concept of art in this sense? And how do you think of artists creating their work? Do you think most are neurotic, or do you think they find it peaceful and relaxing with the idea that "everything is OK"?