Ever since I was a child, I was driven to create. I would draw Superman, tanks or medieval warriors. I wanted to exercise my will over this world by manifesting my desires. My parents nurtured that flame by providing me with constructor sets—Tools to create from my imagination. It began as an exploration of crayon to paper and ended with plastic structures reaching to my ceiling.
A box became a helmet, shield, car or armor. I would lean a mirror from the couch to the floor and examine the reflection of our known world, wanting nothing more than to walk into that reflection, into a new world where angels were distorted, where logic and perspectives were of my creation. Where I could express myself without the dull, lifeless, and condescending eyes of realty glaring at me.
I was an artist. Not by desire, but by birth. The desire to create isn’t what I want as much as it is something I need to do. If I’m at my computer I will work on digital art or video. If I’m at a business, waiting for a service, I’ll write. I am in a constant mode of concepting or creating. Give me a pencil and paper and time. Give me a camera and message and wait and see. I’d like to romanticize it and say it’s a dangerous or painful, this compelling drive, but the truth is I love it.
I am less concerned about the reception of my work, than the conception, process and realization of the creation. This led me to my profession.
Watching my mother draw and paint as a child filled me with a sense of awe and wonder and when I would ask for a picture and she would draw it in front of me. It would always bring me to tears. Watching creation is truly amazing to me. I would share the same childlike awe and wonder watching my children’s birth, followed by the same tears, as I marveled at what my wife and I had created together.
This led me to design. If I was to create something, if I wanted to lead my creation to purpose, it must be through design. Art is expression. Design is direction. I served in the US Army to pay my way through college. And in college, I came alive! The design process was thrilling to me! I was given a design problem and it was my privilege to come up with a solution. I could be as creative as I wanted to be and I had the time of my life. I left college with honors and entered the professional world with pride.
I immediately realized that my creative expression would forever be tampered down by client and brand. Previous designers set up a standard that I then had to follow, no matter how bad or foolish I believed it to be. My creativity and voice was being silenced. Those first few years were the most challenging for me. I had something to say, but I didn’t have an outlet.
Then one day I decided to create on my own terms. I’d never explored audio editing or production, and I felt that I had things to say. I’ve always loved storytelling, so I created 9sense. This would be my obsessive Frankenstein’s monster for the next 5 years. During that project I designed logos, T-shirts, websites, etc. It allowed me to go back to the college experience of creatively solving design problems.
The process ended up taking too much of my time, so I cancelled 9sense and took time to recharge my batteries. I worked on a few different projects before deciding to simplify what I had loved about 9sense—celebrating other creators while exploring my own artistic expression—and add video to it with the project Speak of the Devil. With this open format I can stretch my creative muscles in any number of ways, exploring humanity, socio-political ideas and religion. I can play games, celebrate other creators all for fun. I can create.
Sometimes it’s a photo, an essay, a piece of art, a video, a sound file, a logo, a website, a digital or print ad, or just a piece of music. Whatever I feel in the moment I can explore in that moment. This is what it means to me to be a Satanist to me. I am creating a reality, in any medium, and unleashing it on the world. I am breathing life into the vacuum of space and manifesting my desires. I am literally a creator, a god—my own god. Weather my profession as a Graphic Designer is purely Lesser Magic or my passions projected, I am the creator.
If Satanism is the carnal exploration of humanity. If it is the exercising of one’s will through their desire, than Satanism is creation. The creation of moments, experiences, change in the natural world and tangible artifacts of practical or artistic appreciation. Satanism is creation and I will create. Not because it’s something I want to do, but rather because I was born to do it.
So I ask you, what are you creating? How are you exercising your beast? Don’t sit there and make excuses, stand up and create! We should be celebrating the diversity of creation, whether you enjoy a particular expression or not. This is what it means to be human, this is what it means to be a Satanist! Create!
Hail Satan!