All the Ways We Make

Why the art world doesn't need another us-vs-them divide

I've been thinking about how we categorize artists. How we create these hierarchies—blue chip gallery artists at the top, everyone else scattered below. It's nonsense, honestly.

We live in a world that profits from division. Us vs them. The haves and have-nots. Social media feeds us compare and despair like it's our daily bread. We're all trying to keep up with some version of the Joneses, scrolling through highlight reels that make our real lives feel insufficient.

But what does this serve in the art world? What purpose does it serve to pit the MFA graduate against the self-taught painter? The gallery artist against the Etsy seller? The museum curator against the community arts teacher?

It serves capitalism. It serves a system that needs scarcity to function, that needs some people to feel "less than" so others can feel "more than." It doesn't serve art. It doesn't serve artists. It sure as hell doesn't serve the world that desperately needs what we make.

The artist showing at Gagosian and the person painting watercolors in their kitchen on Sunday mornings—they're both answering the same call. They're both saying yes to something that insists on being made.

I think about the plein air painter who drives two hours to catch morning light on a mountainside. They're not trying to sell to collectors. They're trying to catch something fleeting—the way snow looks purple in shadow, the exact quality of January air. This matters. This is sacred work.

The performance artist bleeding for their art in a gallery downtown and the quilter working late into the night? Both are transforming raw experience into something that holds meaning. Both are doing the essential work of being human.

We need the conceptual artists pushing boundaries, making us uncomfortable, forcing conversations we'd rather avoid. We also need the craft artists keeping traditions alive—the potter whose hands remember what their grandmother's hands knew, the woodworker whose furniture will outlive us all.

Street artists painting murals in neighborhoods that galleries will never visit. Digital artists exploring what creativity means when machines can dream. Instagram artists building community one post at a time.

Here's what I know: every single one of these paths requires courage. The courage to make something when you could be consuming. The courage to trust that what wants to come through you matters.

I'm tired of the hierarchy. I'm tired of measuring worth by market value or institutional validation. I'm tired of artists apologizing for their medium, their lack of formal training, their small audience, their day job.

When we buy into these divisions, when we participate in this ranking system, we're doing the work of oppression for free. We're taking the beautiful, abundant, infinite act of creation and choking it down to fit into capitalism's narrow definitions of success.

The grandparent teaching their grandchild to embroider while stories pass between them—this isn't less than museum work. This is the work of culture itself, happening in real time, in real kitchens, with real love.

We're all trying to make sense of being alive. Some of us do it with paint, some with pixels, some with our bodies, some with clay. The medium is never the message. The message is always: I was here. I felt something. I made something. You are not alone.

The world has enough division. The world has enough competition. The world has enough people telling other people they're not enough.

Art—real art, all art—is the antidote to that poison. It's the thing that says: there's room for everyone. There's room for every voice, every vision, every imperfect attempt at capturing what it means to be human.

That's enough. That's everything.

Desert X, Matt Johnson. PC Kristine Schomaker