Meaning-before-art is cart-before-horse? Reflection on "Jordan Peterson on art"

I've not come across Peterson before, but someone has pointed out that he's got some views I do NOT agree with. Keeping this here because I find the snippet below interesting, but please do not take it as an endorsement of any of his wider views.

Was pointed to Jordan Peterson by a reflection on another student's blog - but I can't now find it :( I found this interesting extract from "Jordan Peterson on art":

The artist shouldn’t be able exactly to say what he or she is doing. If you can say what you’re doing, you’re not producing art. Art is … well, you can say, art bears the same relation to culture that the dream does to mental stability. Your dream doesn’t say what it’s about, it just is. You can interpret it, and that’s helpful sometimes, just like movie criticism is helpful, but the dream is something that extends you beyond where you already are. That’s why it isn’t verbal thought, it’s something else. It’s like a pseudopod that’s going out into the unknown. That’s what art is. And the artist who subsumes the artistic vision to the ideological framework is putting the cart before the horse. It’s actually a sin, I would say, it’s the ultimate of creative sins to do that, because you’re harnessing the greater to the lesser. It’s like, yeah, you understand things, and you tell a story about what you understand. No, no, you tell a story about what you don’t understand. And then you pull everyone into the story. The story’s an exploration in that way.

Which makes me uncomfortable in a 'good' way because it resonates with my worry that I am maybe making art the 'wrong way around' - instead of producing non-verbal communication, I am actually producing a verbal statement and then 'illustrating it'... I'm shocking myself by saying I think I agree with him in most part, but with strong emphasis on the 'exactly' in 'able exactly to say" - I think the "I don't understand my own art" camp need to make sure they are at least trying to understand it, and at least trying to express something consciously - just producing random shit and expecting other people to see value in it seems VERY indulgent to me... But maybe that's just me! 

I think trying to answer these things for anyone else is, at best, pointless, and at worse, likely to leave you carrying your teeth home in a paper bag... For me then, I do think I need to set out to express something, the 'unknown' is then how that expression happens, and the meaning that gets pulled-in, consciously and sub-consciously along the way. The 'magic' will happen whether you are watching or not. For me, perhaps, Tathos needs to make, Tomgos needs to challenge. 

One thing I need to take away from this and REALLY think about (need to go for a walk!) is the idea of telling a story about something you don't understand. I really really like that (yeah, two 'really's). I wonder if that's part of where my practice is stalling at the moment? I'm trying to tell stories about things I do understand?