We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aric Cheston. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aric below.
Alright, Aric thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?
Yes. Honestly, I really don’t think there’s a choice for me. The aspects of my professional design life that are very “manager-y” can easily take all my energy. I’ve learned that I need to continually be hands on actually creating and building.
I also know that I need the open, imaginative space of art, where I can have different kinds of ideas. When I don’t spend significant amounts of time making, I feel unhealthy.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m a designer and an artist. In my design life I work mostly in designing the user experience of software. Because technology is constantly evolving, I’m really interested in how it fits in people’s lives. I also truly love inventing little products that solve problems in my own life.
In my artist life, I’m a painter, although I dearly love drawing. I love portraits and figurative work, but I’m also obsessed with texture and pattern. I’m always trying to bring these together in a meaningful and profound way.
Related to both, I’ve been running a publication for the past two and half years called You Should Own Art. The mission of YSOA is to encourage more people to collect art. I feel very strongly that life it better lived with art in it. And that there is so much great art in the world, that is so accessible. I’m just trying to connect the two.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
There was a period when I believed that I needed to plan very extensively before starting work on something. I’ve come to believe that a certain amount of exploratory making is part of planning. You learn so much by having something concrete. Maybe you throw it away, maybe you build on top of it. But you’ll learn so much by getting to work.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
This is a tough one. But I think it starts with valuing creativity outside of purely monetary terms. We seem to be in a race to eliminate the arts from our collective idea of what essential education is. I fear that fails to feed and cultivate a very foundational human need for expression and creation. We should aspire to a culture of holding up and valuing art and artists.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://youshouldownart.substack.com/
- Instagram: @ariccheston
Image Credits
Aric Cheston