Sometimes you don’t need to produce a big, meaningful work of art - you just need to make a Little Guy.
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Reminds me of Everest Pipkin’s commencement speech for 2025 graduates of Parson’s Design and Tech BFA, though that speech uses artefacts as representing human authenticity instead.
Overall well said! Though I’d argue that making a lengthy essay arguing for art not needing justification through salience defeats the purpose a little lol. But anyway this is personally one of the most important lessons I’ve learnt with regards to my own artmaking practice. It doesn’t need to Have Meaning to have meaning.
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I haven’t been able to make big meaningful art in quite a while. But I suppose my “little guys” are my pixel art. :)
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My mom was an artist. She worked with everything although her degree was done with an emphasis in ceramics. Her actual profession which paid the bills was bookkeeping/office management but she was always doing something artistic. And she was big into Little Guys. Here’s one of the things she did, not for any reason, just because. She happened to have a small rubber lizard lying around (I don’t know why) and used some kind of metallic powder to zhuzz him up. She was always doing spur of the moment, little things like this.
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