Art That Isn't Going Anywhere
Making something with nowhere in particular to go: no frame, no gift, no post, no plan.
There's a question that arrives the moment we finish making something, and sometimes before we've even started: what's it for? Will it go on social media, or into a frame, or to a market stall? Is it worth a photo? Could it be the beginning of something bigger?
This month, I want to spend some time with the drawings and scribbles that don't go anywhere at all. I think they might be some of the most honest making we do.
"What are you going to do with it?"
If you've ever drawn or painted somewhere other people could see, you've probably been asked this. It's usually asked kindly, with real interest. But it carries an easy-to-miss assumption: that making something is a step toward something else.
I think we learn this young. Somewhere along the way, a drawing becomes something to hand in, hang up or be praised for. As adults, the idea just changes shape. A sketchbook becomes "practice" for some future, real piece. A weekend with watercolours becomes a possible market stall. A creative hobby becomes a ‘side hustle ’.
None of that is wrong. But once a piece needs a destination, it also needs to be good enough to arrive there. In my experience, that's often the exact moment the play quietly leaves the room.
Somewhere along the way, a drawing becomes something to hand in, hang up or be praised for.
A drawing with nowhere to be
Earlier this year, I made a cup of tea, put on some music, and sat down with my coloured pencils. I didn't have an idea in mind. I wasn't working towards anything, and I didn't have a plan for what would happen to the page afterwards. My only intention was to just make.
So I let the music lead. Slower moments became long, looping circles. Quicker ones became zigzags, scribbles, and small, tight loops. I reached for whichever colour felt right at the time, purple then red then a soft green, and layered them over each other without much thought about whether they "went." Rings grew out from the centre, wandered off course, and I let them.
What stays with me isn't really how the drawing looks. It's the feeling of making it: the pencil skidding across the paper, its scratch keeping time with the music, the warmth of the mug beside me. When it felt like enough, I stopped.
The drawing isn't framed, and it isn't finished in any particular sense. It was never going to be. It had nowhere to be, and I think that's what made it so easy to enjoy. With no destination, it had nothing to live up to.
Unfamiliar wonder
Making without a purpose sounds simple, but I'll be honest: it doesn't always feel that way. For many of us, it's unfamiliar territory. With no brief and no finish line, nothing tells you whether you're doing it "right." Your hand can hover over the page. A small voice asks what the point is. It can feel oddly exposed, a bit like stepping somewhere new without a map.
A month before that drawing, I made a collage about exactly that feeling. An astronaut drifts above a red desert under a star-crowded sky, and the words unfamiliar wonder are pieced together letter by letter from old magazines. I was stepping into an unfamiliar environment. Making the collage was my way of meeting the discomfort of not knowing where I was, and turning toward the wonder in it instead.
Looking at it now, it feels like a small map for making without purpose. The astronaut doesn't know what's out there either. No path is laid out, and no destination is marked, and yet the not-knowing is exactly what makes the view so wide. Making without a goal can be a little like that. At first, the missing plan feels like something lacking. Stay with it a while, and it can start to feel like space.
The discomfort doesn't always leave on cue. Sometimes it lingers, and that's okay too. But it can sit alongside curiosity. What happens if I choose this colour? What does this pencil do if I press a little harder? Where does this line want to go? None of these questions leads anywhere in particular, and they don't need to. They're just the wonder, turning up in small ways.
Where the making goes instead
So if a piece isn't going anywhere, where does it go? I've started to think it goes into the time itself. That afternoon of pencils, music and tea didn't need to produce anything to have been worth it. The experience was the whole thing, and it was complete the moment I put the pencil down.
Some kinds of making lean into this completely. Think of chalk on the footpath before the rain comes, patterns pressed into wet sand, or water brushed onto warm concrete that's dried and gone within a minute. Nothing is kept. There's nothing to show anyone afterwards. And yet the making still happened, fully and wholeheartedly, and it still counts.
There's a freedom in that. You can play with a material just to see what it does. You can repeat a mark simply because it feels good, or pick a colour for no reason except that you like it. None of these need a justification. Play doesn't have to lead to a better drawing next time, or prove you've made good use of your afternoon. It's allowed to be enough on its own.
A closing thought
November has a way of speeding things up. The year starts to tally itself: what's been done, what's still left, and what it was all for. If you happen to find a spare moment and some paper nearby, it doesn't have to become anything. It doesn't need to be kept, shown or improved. It can just be a few marks on an ordinary afternoon, made for no one in particular. And if that feels a little unfamiliar, that's alright. Unfamiliar places are often where the wonder is.
With warmth,
Tegan Bailey AThR — Art Therapist
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