Artists are not in control of the best works they create. Instead of originating in the head of the creative, the blueprints for their aspiring progeny exist out in the ether. In this state, the horrid wisp often knows no concept of reality, of audience expectation, or wider social implications. As it sits in anticipation, it only knows urgency.

The greatest honor of any artist is to become the mistreated conduit of these creative demons. The process of translation from unknowable entity to words on a page (or sound from a speaker) is often a self-destructive one. When one such monster is released into a creative product, the hand of the artist cannot help but stain the beast with their human biases: the pure creative spirit is contaminated by societal baggage, artist prejudices and unintended themes. Only after we boil the creatures down into a deliverable product can we assess the extent of this contamination or reflect on the worth of the agony this process also manifested.

These undesirable by-products, agony and contamination, can be mitigated by a creative team. To summon one of these entities together means a shared burden and creative companionship. The ability to keep each other’s stains of bias in check, or to ponder a technical problem together often acts as a shield against the most self-destructive elements of the creative process. In the best creative teams, working together to lighten the load reinforces our status as a social species. The niche that I have found most personally effective is to be creative support for a communal summoning. Translating these spirits together allows me to highlight the beauty in the work done by my collaborative partners and elevate the effectiveness of their contributions to dizzying heights.

The deplorable entities we seek to contact are under no obligation to be courteous to a human audience. The desire to bend them into an unchallenging and approachable shape is merely another symptom of our vain blemishes. But challenge is an aspirational part of the artistic process. Our world is in desperate need of art that challenges our narrow biases; art that challenges the status quo; art that allows us to see beyond ourselves. Herein lies the social responsibility of the artist: If we choose, we can coax our artistic spawn to inspire introspection and empathy. The only ingredient required to transform these demons into agents of change is guidance.