Huh. As an artist and crafter, I feel the exact opposite. It's the "making" that's the fun part. A lot of times I don't aim to make anything specific - I'm just playing around for the hell of it. Then whatever I'm working on starts reminding me of something else, and that's when the "thing" begins to become defined.

For example, one time I was playing with a multi-tonal yarn, crocheting without any real goal, and the spotted pattern it was making reminded me of a dog. So I turned it into a scarf - a scarf that looked like an extremely long dog, with face, paws, tail and all. Even gave it a pink little tongue dangling out of its silly, happy mouth. It pretty much lives in my car, because I almost never wear scarves - but it looks cute wrapped around the passenger seat's headrest.

Making patterns from the noise is my favorite part of art. I don't make in order to "have things," I make in order to exercise creativity. It's extremely fulfilling in and of itself. Is that... is that not how most artists feel?

Or are the "creators" in this post people who turned their hobby into an obligation, and subsequently sucked all joy out of the process?

(Sometimes people ask me why I don't sell things/have an Etsy store, and in that case I'll call this entire post Exhibit A.)