Sally Rooney made me angry :(

Why making art changes the world

I promise to divulge all my beef with renowned and beloved author Sally Rooney in one hot second, but first: my creative community closes for enrolments tomorrow. The Inspired Collective opens only twice a year. Do not miss out. If you want to end 2024 on a creative HIGH, having taken yourself seriously as an artist, sign the fuck up. If you want to spend the first half of 2025 making cool shit, and putting it out there, sign the fuck up. If you want me to champion your art, if you want creative community … sign the fuck up, now.

Okay, So, Sally Rooney made me grumpy.

For those who don’t know, Sal writes absolutely fucking excellent books that I personally love, and so do millions of others.

She said this recently:

Whilst it is comforting to know that even those at very top of the game, have doubts as to their value, I wish Sally would’ve been more careful about how she worded this. I have spoken with too many artists to count who tell me that they can’t write the books they want to write, they couldn’t possibly make the art they yearn to make, they morally shouldn’t take their music seriously — because art is frivolous, and there are real world problems that need fixing!

The narrative that art is decoration, a luxury, a selfish indulgence is rife, and it is fucking wrong.

Sally, your book changes lives. They change the world. They’ve changed my world.

We are sold a narrative that we have to be in STEM to be making a difference, or have a job as a politician in order to make the world a better place. If we aren’t making policy or finding the cure in a lab, we are useless.

But we all have our own way of leaving the world better than we found it.

For many of us, Sally included, it is through ART. It is through story telling.

“I can’t make art because art’s not going to save the planet” - is ridiculous. It does and it can in many ways serve and save the planet. We don’t need to be a scientist to be make a positive impact on this world.

I take particular issue with this phrase: “I ought to be spending my time on something more productive”

There is no act more productive than the act of making Art.

You made something that wasn’t there before. Something didn’t exist and then it did.

I know how many writers and artists will read Sally’s words and sink deeper into the narrative that art is a waste of time, a form of laziness, a neglectful way to spend their life. I hope they find this article, and hear me when I say: art is a profoundly generous, important and serious way to spend your time. Creating stuff changes this world. Art is political. Art changes the public conscious. Art impacts.

I’m not sure where Sally was coming from when she said this, I think a lot of successful artists are plagued with some sort of guilt that they get a to live a life filled with art, and they feel they need to atone for it. But a life of making art for the world is a generous life of service to the world. Please remember that.

All my love,

Amie.

P.S James proof reads all my essays, but he’s in bed so I raw-dogged it - you’ve got Amie unfiltered. xoco