Category: ART

LONELY CONTENT MACHINES

I like this quote from New Creative Era:

THE CREATIVE STATUS QUO HAS MADE US LONELY CONTENT MACHINES
PRESSURED TO POST WITH UNNATURAL QUANTITY AND FREQUENCY
TO PURSUE OUR LIVELIHOODS AND EXPRESS OUR WORK
WE PLAY SOMEONE ELSE’S GAME

I’ve been thinking about that first line a bit, as I sort of felt isolated as a writer, as someone trying to offer up ideas. I feel like it’s me vs everyone, stacking up against everyone else trying to offer solutions and ideas in a busy, hyper-competitive world of music and culture.

Makes me think back to my high school days. I hung around creative musical people all the time, for years. The result was creative musical projects. These days, I’m not so creative with music anymore.

I wrote this in 2018:

We can’t do the “real life” thing if we’re scrolling through an app for hours a day. That’s not “keeping up” or “staying informed,” that’s taking time away from our creative pursuits! And emailing friends! Calling people. Have coffee with friends.

We are lonely content machines, cooped up in our rooms and studios trying to make everything ourselves.

The real life hangs and interactions came to an end in 2020 because of the pandemic, and I think it’s gonna take a minute to get back to that.

DO WHAT YOU LOVE

Found this interview via CHRIS WONG’s newsletter UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS, from the 18:15 mark:

“I don’t know what it’s going to become, but do that because one day you’re going to wake up and you’re going to be 40 years old like me, and you might be dying of cancer, and you may have spent your entire life doing something that you never truly loved.”

Instant listen, and wow… so good. Lots of blog talk, and following your passion inspiration.

ZENMOJIS

I often think of closing my Twitter account, but then something like this finds its way onto my timeline, from Anne Fine:

“I used to make a lot of emoji art through instagram stories when I was bored, but then they changed the UX of stories and it was no longer possible for me to make these.”

Anne called these “zenmojis.”

CHOPPY WATERS

I always love seeing talented friends post their art and magic.

This is from Joce Aucoin (“Choppy waters today I guess” from Twitter), whom I met like way back in 2002 or 2003 when she was doing LUJO Records and sending me albums in padded mailers when I was doing my music blog. Here we are 20 years later, still at it.

She’s been making a lot of collage work, which I just love seeing as she keeps growing it.

SHIN OH’S TINY VOXEL SHOPS

These are so wonderful.

“If we don’t support old shops, they’ll be gone forever,” Shin says. “I tried to ‘preserve’ the old shops through this series […] I hope when people see it, it will remind them to go and support their small local businesses.”

From ‘Shin Oh “preserves” traditional Malaysian spaces and places with her 3D pixel room building,’ via Kottke.

CREATIVITY NEVER STOPS

From today’s HEAVY METAL EMAIL, “FACTS ARE EASY AND BORING AND NO ONE CARES.”

Promoting your creative work should be art. It should spark curiosity, wonder, and delight.

That doesn’t mean spend 3 hours a week “engaging” on social media, or editing videos for TikTok.

Make stuff, then tell your friends.

Keep in touch with the creative, energetic, artistic people in your life.

Stop shouting it to “all” of your social media followers, especially when 80% of them won’t even see it.

Share the things you make directly with people who will appreciate it.

TURN YOUR IDEAS INTO THINGS

Often I’m asked about people’s ideas, and this is what I usually say:

Don’t ask, just start. 

Do it often, make your mistakes, and keep learning. You need to be child-like in your zeal for the idea that you have.

Make 10 instances of your “thing,” then get some feedback.  Send it to people who might enjoy it, and see if they share it. If they don’t, DON’T ASK THEM WHY. Make another thing. And then another. Make them until they’re so good your friends are finally asking, “WHEN IS THE NEXT ONE?!”

But don’t seek approval before you even start. Just start it. Make it, stay busy with it, and refine it. Solicit opinions from people you trust, but don’t spend a lot of time monitoring comments sections or writing emails or having mega long conversations. That’s time you could be spending working on your thing.

Remember, you’re just starting something. You need a thing before you can really have conversations about your project!

So get busy working on your thing. 

Wait, how? 

Guess what – that’s for you to decide! Do you buy a domain name, then secure the 14 social media networks with that name first? Publish weekly? Release something every month? That’s up to you!

Make 10 of your things. From there you’ll be nailing down your process. The busy work, the technical parts, the images that you’ll use, tone, maybe working with other people – there are so many moving parts! Figure all of that out behind the scenes, quietly, before you’re bumbling and stumbling around in front of 1,000 people a day. Oops.

But work on it everyday, and get something out there as often as you can. It’ll force you to trim the fat from your process, and you’ll learn that quicker by a putting out a lot of stuff, rather than sitting on something until it’s “perfect.” You don’t want your production to be so arduous that it takes you weeks or months or years. That much time between releases, at least to start, and you’ll miss out on learning valuable lessons. 

At this stage in the game you need those lessons. Those lessons add up. And while this thing you’re working on now might not work out, you’ve learned a bunch, so it was never a waste of time. Just take those lessons now and apply them to your next idea. Go!

This piece originally posted on Patreon on April 3, 2016.