Is Art A Necessity or A Luxury?
This weekend, I was standing in a room full of artists - people surrounded by their own work, work they’ve poured their time, hearts, and inner worlds into - when I kept hearing the same sentence float through conversations:
“Art is a luxury. People don’t need it.”
The first time, I brushed it off. The second time, I felt it sink a little deeper By the third time, I felt a familiar ache rise up.
At one point, I was talking to an artist I admire. He gestured at his unsold painting, gave a small, almost embarrassed smile, and said, “Well, it’s not essential. It’s just a luxury, you know?”
And something in me paused. Not in judgement, but in recognition.
Because I’ve said versions of that myself, especially when sales are slow or when discouragement creeps in. It’s a way of cushioning disappointment. Of making it feel like we’re asking less of the world. Of trying to protect ourselves from wanting our work to matter as much as it does.
But as I listened to him, and then to someone else, and then another, a different question kept tugging at me:
If art is truly a luxury, then why do even the people who say that rely on it every single day?
And I don’t mean the artists in that room. I mean everyone. Even people who insist that they “don’t get art” live surrounded by it:
You turn on music when you’re stressed or lonely.
You hang photos of the people you love so your home feels like it holds them.
You watch movies to escape into a world that momentarily lifts the weight off your chest.
You choose the color of your walls because you want your house to feel calm or bright or warm.
You place a painting in your living room because it makes the space feel more like you.
None of those things are luxuries. Those are lifelines. They’re tiny anchors that keep you connected to yourself and make a life feel lived.
And here’s the part we forget: Art has always been part of humanity.
Before written language, we painted on cave walls. Before we had governments or cities or systems, we had stories, symbols, songs, and marks on stone. The first humans didn’t paint because they had “extra time.” They painted because something inside them needed to be expressed, remembered, honored, or understood.
Creating wasn’t optional - it was instinct.
Art - in any form - is how humans have always tried to make sense of life. It’s how we remember what matters. It’s how we soften grief, celebrate joy, and process the chaos of living in a world that changes faster than we can hold onto.
So when I hear artists say art is a luxury, it’s interesting - and honestly, a little sad. It often feels less like a statement of truth and more like a protective shield. A way to avoid the sting of wanting something that feels out of reach: connection, recognition, value.
And when artists say it to non-artists, it can unintentionally reinforce the idea that art is optional, extra, of frivolous.
But I don’t believe it. Not for a second.
Because even if you never pick up a paintbrush, you benefit from what art brings into the world: beauty, meaning, escape, memory, identity, comfort. You don’t have to make art to need it. And maybe art isn’t necessary in the exact way air or water is necessary. But it is necessary in the way that love is. In the way that belonging is. In the way feeling something - really feeling it - reminds you that you’re still here.
Art makes space inside us - space to feel, to breathe, to understand ourselves, to remember we are alive.
And that’s not a luxury. That’s being human.
Featured Painting
Dreamt In The Arms of The Sea, 24×36, Mixed media on canvas
Dreamt In The Arms of The Sea is a luminous, atmospheric abstraction that drifts between memory and dream. Moody blues and soft grays mingle with bursts of warm, earthen color, suggesting a coastline held in shifting light. Layers of texture and intuitive mark-making echo the pull of tides, the weight of cliffs, and the quiet surrender found in water’s embrace. This piece invites you to linger in the in-between - where landscape becomes feeling, and the sea holds what we’re not yet ready to name.
As of the publishing of this Studio Notes, this painting is available here.
