Essay 01 and Introducing Access Fund

We go through life with periods of intense focus on what we are doing, and other times that focus drifts. There are those select individuals who spend their entire life singularly focused on one thing, pushing through with a kind of relentless clarity. These are the Picassos of the world, the Steve Jobs types. Some were born with it. Others found it much later—artists such as Paul Cézanne and Henri Rousseau.

Neither path is more noble. One may create more beautiful things, but early or late both matter. It is almost as if two rocks brush against each other, and the spark that appears sometimes makes a fire. Yet you need the patience to keep brushing those rocks together. Maybe that is not the perfect analogy, but there is a way of thinking about creation that is not just the sudden spark of inspiration. It is the day to day focus on the work itself. That is where passion really lives. The real interest is in the people who carry a lifelong love for what they’re doing. Life is lived through the act of making.

Imagination and creativity are not limited to art. Einstein was extremely creative in the way he took disparate ideas and connected them to find meaning and knowledge. And there are artists without formal education, self-taught individuals who step outside the bounds of what we consider “traditional contemporary art.” The desire is not always about creating a work that sustains you or outlives you. Often it begins in some deeper psychological place we cannot quite name, but the impulse is there. The impulse to create.

The act of creating is a human trait, something carried throughout history and time, something that has sustained us and held cultures together, held us together as human beings.

We should engage in that act of creation without any hang-ups or prejudices about where that creation comes from or how late it arrives.

In the art world, a lot of emphasis is sometimes put on youth, on artists who are young or where their education is from, but we shouldn’t give these things more weight than they deserve. They are secondary.

Creating goes deeper than all of that. It exists within the consciousness of humans. It lives in a place no formal education can give and no youth can guarantee. Anyone at any age can tap into it. It takes time to build the skill and the discipline, but with focus the individual becomes the thing they practice. Neither age nor education nor pedigree matters. It is the act of creation itself that deserves our attention. It is the act of creating that we should value, cherish, and raise up in society.

Because in this digital age, in the age of AI and the like, we should value that human spark of creativity—the very spark that created these tools to begin with. And we should hone in on that spark now, at a time when so many parts of our lives will eventually be outsourced to digital things. Creation remains the one place where the human spirit cannot be replaced.

Wishing you well, Your friends at Isca Objects.