To create is to be a child at play.

Playfulness is an essential part of creating art. It is an open and adaptive state of mind that porously lets art be shaped by the world. As kids, playfulness meant roaming around imaginary worlds as we swam with mermaids or slayed fire-breathing dragons. It meant spontaneous games of tag that end in giggling fits, and trying to build cozy blanket fortresses that gave us sanctuary from the adult world. Playfulness was simple, eruptive, and inescapable.

The broken belief is that playfulness parts with age, taking along with it our flowing creativity. While it is true that adults are much less likely to break into spontaneous bouts of freeze tag, playfulness is thriving within the adult mind, subtly giving us joy in the day-to-day. The secret glee of cooking off-recipe, imagining a new Star Wars collectible to 3-D print, and shimmying your shoulders to a new jam that won’t leave your head are all signs of a mind at play. These bursts urge us to act: create, express, enjoy. When they are listened to, art is created.

The concept of play has been a central value within my own creative process. For me, it represents freedom of the mind and senses, instinctually acting in ways that bring joy. I’ve written poems imagining myself as an orange, created improvised dances acting possessed, and drawn synesthetic visual representations of music. While my forms of play do not always produce publicly palatable art, it brings satisfaction into my creations and hones my artistic instinct. Indulging in my playful urges even enhances my appreciation of others’ art.

Reinventing

Recently, I was watching an Animal Crossing YouTuber, Tiger, create a 2000s-inspired shopping mall on their kid-core style island. Drawing from elements of their own childhood, like going to the kids’ clothing store Justice and getting to make a plushie at Build-A-Bear, they creatively put together random items in the game to make the space feel alive. As I watched, I was left in awe by their ability to transform the mundane into magic, just like I used to do as a kid playing pretend. By enabling their inner child, Tiger created a work of art on their island.

Reliving

Another Animal Crossing YouTuber, Sparksby, unleashed childhood memories in Animal Crossing by creating an island inspired by her childhood on the German countryside. Her initial goal with her island was to capture the majestic and minimalistic beauty of the countryside, as a challenge to her usual maximalist island-decorating style. She created a mushroom hiking trail (to represent her parents’ mushroom foraging) and car washing areas (to represent the early weekend mornings she was awakened by her car-washing neighbor). She acted on whatever idea came to her mind and allowed herself to enjoy the different directions the island took. As the island progressed, Sparksby found herself playing the game offline, which she mentioned is rare for her. Eventually, she decided that the island would be her “forever” island, meaning she won’t delete it after its completion, unlike the other islands she works on in her channel.

Animal Crossing content, sadly, focuses on plan over play. It prioritizes creating the most aesthetic islands over personal desire and joy. Overall, this monotonous hyper-focus ends up with many creators burned out. When we continuously snuff out our playful instincts and the voice of our inner child, we make it harder to unlock the joy of creation. We end up turning art from an expression to a chore. Conversely, when we follow creative urges and listen to our internal and external environment, like Tiger and Sparksby, we can end up falling in love with our art all over again.

Rule-Breaking

This phenomenon happened to Caroline Polachek when creating “Pretty in Possible” from her Desire, I Want to Turn Into You album. Caroline has been quoted multiple times saying that the track is her favorite on the album because it subverts the typical verse-chorus pop song format. It has no verses. It lacks a lyrical chorus. Instead, Caroline compares the song to becoming a boat and simply floating. Listeners sail along with her, flowing through raw meaning and melodic vocals. Caroline is a poetic pop genius with vocal abilities so unique that she gets accused of using AI and autotune. You can see her love of the craft within her music as she experiments with her sound and interpolates her old songs into her new ones. Caroline’s experimentation and playful spirit reinvigorate pop music today, giving listeners fresh sounds. Childish Gambino, Tyler the Creator, Kendrick Lamar, Charli XCX, and so many more wonderful artists do this; they master their genres and then playfully delve into them, experimenting and breaking the rules within.

Playfulness in art takes the shape of reinventing the mundane, unleashing inner memories, and experimenting with rules and sound. It allows an artist to truly dive into their art. Playful art fosters enjoyment for creator and audience alike, and it keeps us coming back for more.