Would you keep creating if no one noticed?

Lessons from the artist no one—except a police officer—noticed.

What drives you to keep creating—when there’s no audience, no praise, no one watching?

As designers and creatives, we’re often taught to measure the value of our work through recognition—from clients, followers, the press, awards. But what if the most compelling work exists entirely outside that system?

What if making—rather than being seen—is the point?

That’s not just a philosophical question. It’s the story of Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (1910 –1983)—a man who kept creating for decades, even when no one noticed.

Almost all of Von Bruenchenhein’s paintings are square because they are painted on wooden trays salvaged from bakery racks. This abstract work from my collection, No. 865 (1960), evokes unseen worlds, whether in deep space or the ocean depths.

Von Bruenchenhein didn’t attend art school. He didn’t even finish high school.

But he was a passionate self-taught scholar who was deeply immersed in botany and history. He filled notebooks with metaphysical theories about the origins of life and the cosmos.

He lived his entire life in Milwaukee, working in a bakery until years of inhaling flour dust damaged his lungs and forced him to stop.

His true life's work was something else entirely.

Yet, over five decades, Von Bruenchenhein quietly produced a vast body of diverse art—photography, paintings, ceramics, and sculpture.

Untitled painting, 1958. From the collection of the American Folk Art Museum, New York.

From 1940 to 1950, he focused on photography.

Then, in the 1950s, he began painting on discarded masonite panels salvaged from the bakery. Using oil paint and unconventional tools—sticks, combs, even brushes made from his wife’s hair—he created extraordinary abstractions that evoked cosmic landscapes and otherworldly realms.

Over the course of ten years, he created almost a thousand works. But his work was ignored.

He approached local galleries, only to be dismissed time and again.

“No... not a one, not a one. I would love to see people looking at my own stuff, that is what I’ve always tried... People don’t know… that art that I had... it was out of the world… out of this world!

— Von Bruenchenhein reflecting on trying to get his work shown

His paintings weren’t displayed in museums. They were stacked in the small Milwaukee home he shared with his wife.

When he died in 1983, his work was on the verge of being lost to obscurity.

It was not an art historian, nor a critic, nor a curator who finally brought his paintings to the world’s attention.

It was a local policeman—his friend—who refused to let the work disappear.

After Eugene's death in 1983, policeman Daniel Nycz (left)—an old friend—reached out to the Milwaukee Art Museum, hoping to sell Von Bruenchenhein’s (right) work to support the artist’s widow, Marie.

A rare, early hand-colored portrait of Von Bruenchenhein’s wife, Marie. Eugene developed his film in a makeshift bathroom darkroom and printed the photographs at home. Without formal training or professional equipment, he relied on instinct and experimentation, creating images that are now celebrated as visionary works of outsider photography. This photo is one of a group from my collection.

The artist without an audience

Some artists are celebrated in their lifetime—championed by galleries, patrons, and institutions who ensure their place in history. Others create in obscurity, unnoticed until long after they’re gone.

Eugene Von Bruenchenhein was one of the latter.

Many now argue that Von Bruenchenhein’s work rivals and surpasses his contemporaries. Think Max Ernst, for example. But what makes his story resonate for me isn’t just the work—it’s his unshakable commitment to making it.

Untitled painting, 1958. From the collection of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta

The myth of external validation

As creatives, it’s easy to look outside ourselves for validation.

Success can be seen as proof of talent, and recognition as proof of worth. But what happens when the world isn’t paying attention?

What if success in the traditional sense isn’t part of the equation?

If we knew no one would ever see or appreciate our work, would we still make it? Would we still write, paint, design, or compose?

Von Bruenchenhein’s story invites us to challenge the thinking that what we create ever could—or should—depend on others.

He wasn’t chasing approval, waiting for the right conditions, or searching for an audience. He spent five decades creating because he couldn’t stop.

His need to explore ideas and express his creativity fueled him.

Untitled painting from 1960. From the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York.

The challenge: What will you make?

The truth is, the world does not always reward talent. Luck plays a role, yet it is something we can’t control.

What we can control is our commitment to keep going.

Von Bruenchenhein left behind thousands of pieces because he believed in the act of creating for its own sake. For his own sake.

His work was a conversation between himself and the universe—unshaken by rejection, untouched by praise. It was a rich and fruitful conversation.

So maybe the question to ask isn’t whether the world will notice your work.

It’s this: Will you commit to creating, no matter what?