Why My Spell Exists: An Artist Statement for a Culture Hungry for Meaning
Art isn’t decoration —
It’s the part of culture that helps us see differently, feel deeply, and imagine what doesn’t yet exist.
My Spell was created as a gentle but powerful invitation to shift perspective without blame. This statement explores why that matters now more than ever.
We are living in a time when imagination is shrinking, not because people have lost their creativity, but because the world has told them they don’t need it.
We’re surrounded by noise, distraction, and “bread and circuses”—a constant stream of entertainment that fills the hours but doesn’t fill the heart.
In that environment, art is often dismissed as unnecessary, outdated, unpredictable, or only for the few who “get it.”
But the truth is simple:
Without art, our inner world becomes impoverished. Without artists, our culture loses its ability to see beyond the present moment.
Art doesn’t preach.
Art doesn’t argue.
Art doesn’t demand belief.
Art opens.
It creates a space where someone can see themselves differently, or see others differently, or simply feel again in a time when feeling is often dulled by speed, stress, or fear.
This is why My Spell exists.
It isn’t a film that tells you what to think.
It isn’t a manifesto disguised as a song.
It’s a creative experience—one moment of color, music, story, and image—offered gently, without instruction.
And yet, people say it shifts something.
A man said recently,
“At first I thought this was a song for women’s empowerment…
but now I see it’s also for men who have made women second-class citizens.
The spell is women casting a spell on themselves… to come out of that.”
That’s what art does:
It makes room for new thinking in places where old thinking has been stuck for generations.
It comes through the unconscious, tempered by the conscious.
It can mean rebellion — but it can also mean learning to value ourselves and our contributions.
What artists create can carry an inherent vibration that makes people re-see — and review — their own narratives without blame.
And this is needed now more than ever.
Not because artists are special.
But because artists are the nervous system of society — the part that feels what others don’t, sees what others overlook, and imagines what others assume is impossible.
For too long, that part of the system has been dismissed, mocked, underfunded, or told to “be practical.”
The result?
A culture that is efficient, productive, and technologically brilliant —
but spiritually thin, emotionally underfed, and collectively disoriented.
It’s time for something different.
It’s time for art that is:
accessible
playful
surprising
rich in color
rooted in wisdom
welcoming to all
nourishing rather than numbing
and brave enough to challenge what needs challenging, without alienating the very people who need to hear it.
It’s time for artists to come out of hiding.
To grow into the fullness of their vision.
To speak in ways the world can listen to — indeed, want to listen to.
To offer new reality, not escape from reality.
This is my contribution to that moment.
And here is what I have come to understand:
Artists — believe it or not — are the leaders of society.
Not necessarily of its hierarchies or institutions,
but of the human soul.
Artists are connected to the Divine:
they hear the music, feel the rhythm, catch the words before consciousness shapes them. Writers know this. Composers know this. Painters know this. Anyone who has ever been “overtaken” by inspiration knows what this is.
Non-artists can reach that place too, of course…
but the world often rewards the opposite:
force, precedent, expertise, the carrot, the stick.
Artists have been recalcitrant leaders — not because they lack vision,
but because they’ve had to work through the weight of misunderstanding:
reactivity, rejection sensitivity, resentment, the lifelong ache of not being seen. They’ve been trying to crack through concrete to reach the light.
And at the same time, many people who were never allowed to choose an artistic path — whether due to family culture, genetics, pressure, or fear — may unconsciously “lock out” others. Some are jealous of artists. Some pull the rug out from under them. Some dismiss, minimize, or mock. Not because they are cruel, but because they were taught to be locked out from that world themselves.
But the truth remains:
Artists hold answers that are desperately needed now.
And when an artist finally comes out of the shadows —
when they stop apologizing for their nature,
stop shrinking to fit the world’s comfort,
stop hiding their dimension —
something happens.
A reward appears.
Not the “reward in Heaven” we heard about,
but the reward in this life:
self-acceptance,
clarity,
moments of perfect self-expression,
the sense of speaking from your real center,
the recognition that you are not alone,
and that others — who have hidden their own truth —
suddenly meet your eyes with respect.
It is worth the struggle.
It is worth the years of frustration.
It is worth climbing out of wallflowerhood and into full dimensionality —
three-dimensional as a human being,
and four-dimensional as a spiritual being in a human life.
For a long time, artists have not been recognized as leaders.
Parents warn their children not to become one. Advisors gently steer young people toward something “practical.” Society talks about art as though it were indulgent or optional — a luxury for the few, not a necessity for the many. And when the world repeats that message loudly enough, for long enough, the artist begins to internalize it. We start to believe we are secondary. We grow prickly. We struggle through decades of misunderstanding and think, well, maybe this is just who I am. But it isn’t. It’s who we became because we were never given a place to stand.
The truth is that artists are leaders — but only when we recognize ourselves as such.
We have spent so many years being told we are impractical, fragile, unrealistic, or “not essential” that we began to forget our own authority. But the authority was always there. The artist is connected to source, to intuition, to the deeper patterns that run beneath ordinary life. We are the ones who feel what others have numbed, who see what others overlook, who imagine what others assume is impossible. The world may not have known what to do with that — but we can no longer afford to hide from it ourselves. The first act of leadership is simply this: to acknowledge who we are. That is the threshold I am crossing now.
And perhaps this is why parents of creative children — which is to say, most all children (Buckminster Fuller reminded us that all children are born geniuses) — might consider giving them a longer leash: more room to explore, more opportunities to discover the world and their place within it. Creativity needs air. It needs space to experiment, observe, wander, and return — and to make mistakes and grow through them. Online exploration can help, but the three-dimensional world — the one with breath, movement, touch, and heartbeat — is far larger, richer, and more beautiful to a growing mind. When we allow that, we’re not just supporting a child’s talent — we’re nurturing the very capacities the future will depend on.
If any part of this resonates,
I invite you to watch My Spell
and share it with others.
See what it stirs.
See what it opens.
Thank you for listening.
— Tamara Belland
Creator, My Spell