Does authentic creation sell?

Conventional “wisdom” has it that capitalism is good for creativity: the open market-place of ideas allows for the free flow of creative juices and all that.

Maybe this is partially true. When I visited Berlin in early 1989, just before the fall of the wall, the difference between the eastern and western parts was stark. It is a long time ago, yet I still have vivid memories of the explosion of color, sound, and visual stimulation in the west, and the feeling that we had walked into a black-and-white movie set the moment we crossed into the east. It didn’t help that it was winter and the common fuel in eastern Germany at the time was lignite, which left everything covered in a brownish-grayish ash.

And still.

My own experience of the intersection between market forces and creativity is that whatever sells kills imagination. When I set up a textile business as a way to give expression to what I wanted to create, concern for what might be sellable took over and eventually had me decide to walk away. I love textiles and I love sewing, but in the shuffle between production cost and what is “now” and “aspirational” I lost the love for both.

(As an aside, one of the many things I admire about my brilliant spouse, is that he has never let go of his vision for the music-creation that gives deep meaning to his life. This route doesn’t align with market-forces at all, though the authenticity of the creative product does appeal. Check this out).