mukund shyam

I really like art. I like all forms of art. I love learning about art and sharpening the skill of interpreting art. I love art museums and art galleries and plays and films and albums and anything in between. Oh, and books! I love books.

But I don’t know if I am truly an artist. I’d like to think I am, but I don’t know if what I make - or at least what I have been making over the past two years - was art.

I don’t really expect to answer this question, perhaps ever, but definitely not in this text; I guess I just want to think about this in writing.

My relationship with art

As I said, I’ve always been into art, but over the last four years or so, I’ve become completely enchanted by it. I want to see art whenever and wherever possible. My love for art has reached a point where I’ve started to believe that art—not fire, the wheel, or agriculture—is humanity’s most important innovation.*

I suppose this coincided with when I started to produce music and took art as my elective subject in school. In the case of the latter, I only explored a certain form of art—painting—but the formalised study of it definitely helped imbibe the culture of being an artist in me.

After that, in around 10th grade, I started this blog - and I feel like starting this (and starting writing in general) wasn’t “organic” in the same way. I wanted to find something to do, I think, and a bunch of YouTube channels I liked and trusted recommended it. And so I started; it was a slow process to get used to doing it.

Not that I didn’t enjoy it, I loved writing. I still do. I love it a lot. But I don’t think I got into it organically.

I think all of this—the fact that music production is inherently technical and mathematical, the fact that art was formalised, the fact that I didn’t come across writing organically—perhaps led to me gaining a somewhat utilitarian view of art (or at least my art). I thought of it as something to do, something to learn, something to pick up. I didn’t think of myself as an artist, for sure, and I don’t really think I was making art. Making art is hard!

* The good part is that I live in Bangalore - arguably one of the best cities in the country in terms of the art scene - and that I have enough time to go around and experience them.

How have things changed?

I think my relationship with art—and perhaps more specifically artistic and art-adjacent output—changed when I started applying to college.

When I decided to apply to American universities, I started to work pretty heavily on my art. I started to become more and more consistent, and it became an important part of my life very quickly.

A lot of my art from this time of my life was determined pretty heavily by what I expected people would see of it. I wanted to have a solid back catalogue; I didn’t want people to believe that I started to work on these things solely for the college application. I wanted to demonstrate interest and commitment. I really did not want to be “flaky” in the slightest; I wanted to prove—not through my words but rather through my actions—that these were things about which I cared deeply.

This, somewhat counterintuitively, seems to have diluted my relationship with art and my identity as an artist. I became someone who would make things because I had to make it, not because I had something interesting to say. I started to create stuff solely for the sake of creation (and perhaps to a lesser extent learning). Everything became output based—how much stuff was I able to create in this extremely limited amount of time?

This focus on frequency over quality, and on output rather than the artistic process, meant that I stopped engaging deeply with the process of creating; or at least, not as deeply as I hoped to. This is perhaps where my creations stopped being art; in my opinion, art is as much the process of creating as it is the creation itself. This is also perhaps the reason for the insane levels of burnout I experienced towards the end of the twelfth grade.

Of course, suggesting that this was universally bad for my artistic journey is also a bit of a fraudulent narrative; it was extremely important in my journey as an artist to do things that are difficult, to show up everyday and get into the habit of making things, and learning how to improve upon them slowly and steadily. It made me realise how much I loved creating, even if it was something that became a chore to do.

Wait, it changed again?

Well, twelfth ended. I submitted my applications. I finished my board exams. I went on trips. I got accepted to college. I got rejected to college too. I began college.

During this whole 6 month long stretch, I barely touched art.

This wasn’t universally good (of course). I missed making things. I found it hard to start, even when I really wanted to. I felt inspired, but I didn’t feel the need to do something about it in my bones. The artistic impulse to put myself out there vanished.

But the break was necessary. It was calculated. I needed a better relationship with my work. I wanted to make things because I had fun making them, not because I felt like someone—who probably didn’t exist—wanted me to. And it definitely helped.

As time has gone on, I’ve become more and more inspired to make things. I’ve started to want to make things *just for me*, not to release. I’ve started to dream up larger and larger projects that will—certainly—take up more and more of my time. And the best part is that the driving force is a need for artistic release, nothing else.

I’ve started to write more and more. I’ve started working on ideas and scripts.

I’ve started to work on music, too. I have an album idea I really hope I’ll release somewhat soon. Or at least start working on eventually.

I’ve gotten into film. I want to learn how to make things with a shitty camera, but I’m not going to release it for anyone except my close friends.

And photography. I want to take photos that inspire, that aren’t just me learning the ropes.

And, well, I want to paint again.

I have ideas!

What now?

Well, things are going to definitely become a lot more infrequent. Don’t expect regular, weekly blog posts (although I will definitely keep writing a ton).

Expect longer videos, though, hopefully with better production quality and with stuff I’ve learnt through these few months.

Also expect fewer photos. No daily uploads anymore, but higher quality ones.

Basically, expect a slower artistic process with better, more engaging, and more exciting output.

Thank you so much for sticking with my work, and listening to all that I have to say! I hope you’ll still be here for what’s yet to come! Thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you very soon.