Creative Identity
Everyone likes to think that they’re working on themselves in some way or another and depending on a number of factors including self awareness, the improvements can be more or less noticeable over time. Some people make sweeping life changes and can see the results immediately, others can take years, even decades to have any sort of impact.
I bring this up for two reasons; One, because a particular change I said I’d make in my last interview was to engage people outside of my circle, and today’s subject is not that. In fact, he’s actually one of my best friends. But believe me, I’m working on this. The second reason is a little preface to the artistic nature of work that today’s subject indulges in. This viewpoint speaks to the traditional life of an artist where the body of their work is often judged towards the end of their career and in many cases, long after they’ve passed away.
Luke Okay is many things as we talk about in today’s interview but for the purpose of this introduction he’s an artist and a designer, a surfer, a friend, a husband and a father. I was speaking to Luke on the phone a few weeks ago where we were reflecting on the past year and I thought some of the things we talked about would be interesting to include in a small written interview. And here we are.
The most significant thing to me through talking to Luke are the adjustments we make at different stages in life as our environment changes. This is something I’ve subconsciously been through as I’ve travelled through my own life but was especially prevalent as Luke welcomed the birth of his second child towards the end of this interview.
Reading how Luke has had the awareness to use his experiences and adjust how he approaches not only being a father but the motivation to why he creates the art he does is something that I find very admirable and remains a takeaway that I’d love for people to resonate with. At this stage a lot of readers will know how I feel about ‘purpose’ and this conversation is another example of how a little look at purpose can make a big, positive influence on one’s life.
Brett - Question 1 is just an intro. Who is Luke Okay? You can answer as deep or as shallow as you like
Luke - Haha man that’s a big one, straight off the bat. Ok, I used to think that was an easy question, just plug in the things that you do. But who you are is so much more than that.
Especially now, being a relatively new dad with another on the way any day now. I’m for sure in a transitionary phase with my identity and have been for the last couple years and am possibly only just figuring out who I want to be versus where I’m at now and versus how I’m perceived by others. It’s a complicated Venn diagram and I guess the goal is to line those 3 circles over each other as close as possible.
So hopefully a good creative person that is reliable and loving and that the people in my life feel joy and trust when they’re around me or think of me.
Brett - Pretty much a perfect answer for what I want to talk about because I could bet that if I asked you that same question a decade ago you probably would have replied something along the lines of “Artist, designer and all round badass.” which definitely speaks to the many transitions we undergo in life. I talk about purpose a lot in these interviews and it sounds like this is something that’s being challenged and evolved for you now. How do you go juggling the person you’ve been in the past and the person you’re heading towards now?
Luke - Jeezus! That probably would have been my answer back then. That was definitely what I was putting out into the world. I feel like I’ve been on a spirit quest the last 10 years from that first year I stopped drinking for a year, to then challenging myself to do yearly challenges of abstaining from all kinds of things, like sugar, pornography, meat, social media. Now I’m 3 years sober and I think those yearly challenges set me up to be ready to at-least think about who I want to be, instead of coasting through life. I have a fair bit of regret for my hedonistic past, the problem with being a ‘badass’ is that it’s totally narcissistic and I don’t think I really considered how I impacted other people. Luckily my hedonism was all about having fun so it wasn’t completely destructive.
“But now I have to use those regrets to inspire me to move forward.”
I think I wasted a lot of time and could have balanced things a lot better. My purpose in life is create art, I’ve know that since I was a little kid. I’ve been happy to wear the title as ‘artist’ my whole life, but now I actually need to do the work and create something of substance. Not little crappy pieces here and there. A large body of work that I’m proud of, for me and me alone.
Brett - For sure! I think there’s a widely held misconception that you have to hit some sort of rock bottom in order to make a significant change in life but I think your perspective and that of a lot of others I talk to is it’s more about self awareness and the ability to recognise where you’ve been and also where you want to go in life. Which brings me to what you said about creating something of substance with your artwork. You mentioned this to me over the phone but I love the approach of wanting to take your work and creating something that has greater meaning for yourself rather than creating something you think others will like. Is that something most artists encounter at some point? Where does it come from and what’s the key to overcoming it?
Luke - I think most artists/creatives that stay in the game long enough will come up against some kind of capture. We all start as kids that are fascinated by making marks on a page, somewhere along the line that changes. We get older and become conscious of other people looking at our work or influencing our ideas. Our fascination of making marks on a page becomes how can I make it cooler, or make money from this, or falls into the trap of trends because other people are having success doing this kind of work. We encounter capture from the audience or capture of mindset that we need to create for other people or some kind of grandiose ideology. Eventually I think you start feeling dissatisfied by what you’re putting out there and want to create something that speaks to your soul for no other reason but to excite you and no one else.
“If your work doesn’t excite you, then what’s the point???”
So I think the key is to keep evolving and keep making it exciting for yourself, as soon as you’re not excited, time to push into another frontier. But fuck I’ve wrong in the past and thought I was dead certain on the right track, so I could be wrong again, maybe this is just where I’m at now…
Brett - I hope that by this point a lot of people can recognise what you’re talking about and won’t focus on this being a sentiment that purely impacts creative people because I think a lot of parallels could be drawn to someone who may sit behind a desk etc for a living. Is this shift in mindset flowing into other parts of your life too? Not to say that you always want to 100% be doing stuff for yourself because you’re a father now and a large chunk of your life is dedicated to helping and supporting others within your family but perhaps it’s a small note to stop every now and again and ask yourself ‘why’ you’re doing something?
Luke - Asking yourself ‘why?’ Is key. For sure it bleeds into other aspects of my life. I think we all need to make sure we’re doing things that excite us, no matter what that hobby, passion or profession is. That will flow through into how you interact with others. If your work only makes you angry or dissatisfied or miserable, chances are you’re taking that misery with you into your relationships with your loved ones, consciously or unconsciously. ‘The war of art’ by Steven Pressfield is a book I’ve come across recently that dives deep into this stuff and does an unbelievable job and dissecting this concept.
Brett - I think that’s all super fascinating and that book sounds like it’s definitely one to add to the list of reads. Two questions to finish on then:
1. When you look back on a life of creating art what impact or message do you want your work to leave?
2. Being a father now are those messages you want to leave through your art similar to what you’d love to teach your kids or is there something else you want to leave them with?
Luke - 1. Really it’s an exercise in expressing myself and the emotions I have towards that melody I feel between me and the subjects I’m painting. If can manage to capture that beauty and somebody else can see it, that’s all I want.
2. I think with my kids it’s about the melody. How well and how often we can connect and create joy and trust within our tribe. So that they know there’s a resilient and enduring network around them. Which in turn I hope they replicate with their friends and relationships into the future.
Also if my artworks and creative path impart that they can do all kinds of things in this life, no matter how unconventional - That would be an amazing piece of wisdom for them to take into their futures.
Thanks for the cool questions and the opportunity to reflect on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of my path. It helps get clear on everything and set that direction in the compass.