Why We Keep Making (Even When Everything Sucks)

This year has been a doozy, and we’re only two months into it. I know I’m not alone in feeling overwhelmed. I know I’m not the only one who wants to spend the day under a weighted blanket watching the new season of The White Lotus, mindlessly alternating between popcorn and peanut M&Ms.

And while it’s perfectly acceptable (sometimes necessary) to disappear into a snacky escape, this is also the moment when our creativity becomes one of our best coping skills. Not just for ourselves, but for the world.

Because making things isn’t just about making things. It’s about processing. It’s about resistance. It’s about survival. It’s about shining a light in dark places—even if that light flickers.

Creativity connects us through some invisible thread of humanity, but it also gives us a reprieve. However brief. A moment to breathe. A way to feel something—or maybe even escape from feeling for a little while. And this? This is how artists have always carried on.

History is full of artists, writers, and makers who used their work to process hardship, to resist oppression, or simply to survive the weight of existence.

Frida Kahlo painted The Two Fridas after her divorce from Diego Rivera, capturing both her heartbreak and her strength in one stunning, surrealist canvas. Vincent van Gogh created Starry Night while confined to a mental institution, painting not just what he saw but what he felt. Maya Angelou, who refused to speak for five years after experiencing trauma as a child, found her voice through poetry—writing words that would inspire generations. The poet Anna Akhmatova wrote in secret during Stalin’s reign, memorizing her banned poems so they wouldn’t be discovered and destroyed.

Art survives. It carries us through. It stitches us back together.

And yet, creating through hard times is messy. It’s uncomfortable. It’s that stage of the butterfly when everything inside the cocoon is just goo. No wings yet. No certainty that the transformation will even work. Just the discomfort of becoming.

For the weird and wonderful creatives who’ve found your way into this community—through Patchwork Show, Craftcation, the podcast, or however you landed here—you know what I mean.

Sometimes, we don’t make because we feel inspired. We make because we have to. Because it’s the only thing tethering us to ourselves. Because the alternative is to let the world drown us. And when we do make something—when we step back and look at the thing that exists now because of us—it reminds us that we are still here. That we are still creating. That we are still becoming.

So, here’s to tiny brave acts when you don’t feel brave.

Here’s to showing up while you’re still stitching yourself back together.

Here’s to knowing that whatever version of yourself you are right now, there’s an older and a future version of you watching in amazement.

Sometimes, I’ll be able to wrap all of this up in a bow of inspiration and growth. Other times, it’ll show up on your doorstep in a plain brown paper sack, receipt still inside. But when I can, I’ll tie a big red bow on it. And when I can’t—well, thanks for staying here with me anyway.

-Nicole S.