buffshel's gallery <3

It's been a while--a long while. A lot has been happening. Some bad or sad, but mostly good. I am well through my first semester of grad school. Things are tough in that regard. I am making good grades but it's rough out here. I have quit my writing group because I can't be bothered to read or write much of anything other than school work. So it goes.

School is interesting, at least. I am on scholarship which covers half of my tuition, but part of my scholarship requires that I take classes in archives management/archivism. Interesting stuff and a bit over my head, but that's okay. I am quickly learning that a lot of people in the archival field are just doing their best with the knowledge they have, and a lot are learning on the job. So that makes me feel better.

I have made good grades so far, but that may change with these final papers I have to write. I have 3 more papers due, a presentation, and an article review. It'll be fine. That's what I have to tell myself or else I will lose my mind (or, more of my mind than I've lost already).

In terms of my art, I haven't had much time for it. I am back to my barista job, having quit my job at the library in August to make more time for school. It's exhausting. My shift starts at 7, but I wake up at around 5:45 so I have a little bit of time to eat a light breakfast and draw. I've had even less time lately because of all the assignments coming in hot and heavy. I am trying not to stress, because my day job is already enough stress. But anyway--the art I actually have time to make is stuff I enjoy. I have trained myself to not worry about getting things out quickly and to instead take my time. I only post on tumblr but am also working on coding a limited gallery for my neocities website.

I am a bit lonely. I don't hang out much with anyone; my spare time is usually spent on art or writing or videogames or other such singular and solitary activities. I try to do stuff on the weekends to feel less lonely though. Last weekend I volunteered at the local movie theater because they were having a massive poster sale. I was there for about 5 hours, but it went well. My poster partners were nice and we had some fun chats about film when we had some down time from helping the shoppers. The theater director is retiring in December, and the new staffers for the theater have been announced. I hope the transition is smooth. It doesn't impact me directly, I don't work there or anything. But I do like this little theater and I want good things for its future. It's been around since the 1940s and I want it to continue.

Today I revisited one of the library branches as they were hosting a huge book sale Friday through the weekend. I will talk about my little haul when I'm less tired. Hardbacks were only 2 dollars each and I got 6 books for 12 dollars, yay! I also got to reconnect with some of my old co-workers and that was genuinely nice to say hello and see them again. It was raining hard today, but I love the rain. It was a nice day to be in the library and browse the sale. Afterwards I walked to a small coffee spot and tried to wait out the downpour, but it didn't let up and I had to go home to finish some school work.

My day today was nice. I hope to have another nice day tomorrow (though I'll be doing a lot more school work). I finished some art tonight and want to start something new. Haven't decided what yet.

To end, things are rough but I'm trying my best.

It's been really cold here (for the southern US, anyway); there's a dip in the driveway of the apartment complex that often collects rainwater. I refer to it as 'the moat'. It iced over; this afternoon I watched some of the neighborhood kids remove some of the thin sheets of ice and break them on the street. It makes a sound like shattered glass--I used to go out and do the same with my brothers whenever it got cold enough.

It might snow tomorrow. I don't have work. I don't have work Wednesday, either. I expect that most places will be closed. I don't mind; I had no plans except to meet with the librarian at my old high school to ask her about an MLS and different career paths. We can reschedule.

I've done some coding today; I figured out how to use the text editor app on my mac to code and preview web pages in-browser so that I don't have to have all these near-pointless updates or work in the neocities browser anymore. Maybe this will make things smoother for me.

I think tomorrow I will try to work more on the site and on some of my writing. No art; I'm taking a breather from my art (again). I did end up deleting instagram (also again lol). Probably for good this time. I think this has been my 5th(?) time and I hate it every time; I'm gonna try to make myself stay off of it for good. That said, I still want to make art but I think it's wise to distance myself until I feel like making it again.

So yeah, no art for awhile.

I've reinstalled instagram on my phone. I had it initially set up so that I posted exclusively from the computer and nothing else, but making posts on the computer for insta sucks ass because not all the same filters/editing tools are available. I tried out a zonelets-based blog; I like it for creative journaling (much like what I do on here), but not so much for art. I like to see all my art in one place and displayed next to one another, and I can't really have that in the format that zonelets provides.

I think I have a good enough head on my shoulders at this point that the lack of engagement will not affect me nearly as much as it used to (though, I am still very cautious about using instagram again). Since coding my website(s) and working on DW, I've trained my brain to expect little to no engagement, and it's been really nice to (for the most part) no longer think about it and still do my thing. I feel a little bit like a kid again--just doing stuff to do stuff. I am still thinking of putting up my art somewhere outside of instagram too that is less engagement-focused and more archival in nature. Perhaps code yet another website? Or use an open-source layout/template? I haven't decided yet. I spent a lot of my energy building my film blog, and I love the aesthetic, but the functionality is limited lmao. It isn't useable on mobile either, which I don't mind.

I don't know. Instagram is just so blah. I hate social media but sometimes feel like it's a necessity now if I want people to ever see my art. I started reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear and while I'm enjoying it, she opens the first chapter on an anecdote about a relatively unknown poet (Jack Gilbert, no relation) that secluded himself, wrote his poems, published them and was briefly adored by the "literary world" until he secluded himself again and begin the cycle once more. Working on good work, putting it out into the world, having people admire it, and then disappearing to work on the next thing.

Elizabeth Gilbert described him (and, by extension, creators that isolate themselves to their work and return to literary civilization only to publish and nothing more) as "a rare orchid, with blooms separated by many years." It's a very romantic image, but I feel like today this outlook is unrealistic. I write a lot as well as making art. I keep my writing very private usually,but have invested years in soaking and learning everything I can about the publishing industry. I've watched and read a ton about publishing and am a huge advocate for self publishing. This is because most traditional publishers today expect their potential authors to have and maintain a social media page, foisting off promotion on the writer rather than themselves.

To bring it back to social media and its stupid necessity, I feel like you can't be a recluse and still expect to be known. Henry Thoreau fucked off to the woods and was still very popular. The same with Proust. But this was in the 1800s. There was little need for self-promotion on the part of the writer: publishers did that for them. But now to be read, you have to be known.

I don't want to discount artists and writers that have run the social media gauntlet and come out on top. Good for them, truly, cause it's rough out there--as both an outside and inside observer, it is an exhaustive and thankless practice. I don't want to participate, but then, everyone is on their phones now. That is how people know the world. If I want to be known/percieved/whatever, I feel like I have to be a part of all that. I don't know. I didn't like how the zonelets blog came out for the purpose of housing my art--it feels like it doesn't serve my art. I don't like instagram either. I hate instagram so, so much. Really any social media.

I don't make physical art, so I can't really put it in a gallery (not that I even want to lmao, I'm writing a whole anti-institutional art manifesto because I think a lot of the way art is perceived by critics and educators is stupid and overblown and have a novella's worth of yapping to do about it). Producing traditional/physical art is one of the ways non-artists present to combat social media woes and AI and whatnot, but if I don't like making traditional art then there is no point in me making myself do that.

But yeah, nothing new in this department. I don't know what to do, and my art is basically homeless. I think I'll just have to toughen up and chuck my art at the wall that is instagram/soc-med until something sticks. But even then, people lose interest so quick and I've never been one to bend to trends on the basis that they're trending and nothing more.

I've also heard plenty of times that you should be asking questions in your captions, but I think that's dumb because who even reads captions anymore in a short form world? And asking questions in an empty room is depressing.

I don't know. I have lots of feelings and nowhere to put them (except here, I guess lol).

It's been on my mind for a while where to post my digital work. I'd love to archive it on some platform, but social media is not it. The concept of putting my work up on social media does not excite me at all. I've posted before on instagram, tumblr, bluesky, twitter/x, pillowfort, etc. Some of these platforms are better than others in terms of not making me feel like shit. I know on both pillowfort and tumblr the tags actually matter in curating my work and helping others see my stuff.

more thoughts

I've considered reddit, pixiv, newgrounds, etc. I've also considered YouTube for the purpose of pmvs (picture music videos) and other more involved projects, but for the present moment I'm more concerned with still images. I've done deviantart too but since they were bought out by Wix way back it is largely shit. And also they did that thing that a lot of platforms did where users were opted in automatically to AI. Extremely disrespectful, especially considering some artists whose work is still up on these platforms have since passed away and have no say in the matter.

Of all these platforms I absolutely abhor instagram. I hate how everything is in grid format (or rectangle now since they've been prioritizing shortform video content for a long time). Unless you are posting something every day there is little to no growth to be had, and people will not see your shit. The numbers matter a lot there, and the presentation and aestheticism of not just your posts on their own but of your entire grid/page is extremely important (to the point of exhaustion). It is an exhausting platform to use, and I've found that to be true of most social media platforms.

Of all that I've used, I prefer tumblr (though only slightly). I've been on tumblr for a long time (pre NSFW ban, lol) and have gotten used to the tagging system and still like to scroll through certain tags myself. I like how posts under tag search can be sorted between popular v. recent. I like how work circulates there and doesn't seem to fall into oblivion right after it's posted. That said, tumblr certainly isn't what it was. There was, again, the insane automatic 'opt-in' at the onset of generative AI that I and other users had to manually toggle off. I hate that this has happened with multiple platforms (and I hate even more that some have made it altogether impossible to opt out). But then tumblr also initiated their communities feature, which seemed like an effort to facilitate an actual community (until it wasn't). Apparently if someone reblogs a post of yours to a given community, the creator of said post has no knowledge of this reblog and therefore cannot notice that others are out there appreciating their work. It's like people that make private discord servers for certain fandoms and gush about a fanfic on ao3 but then don't bother to leave a comment on the author's actual fic to let them know that their work is noticed and appreciated! Make it make sense! Is it an entitlement thing? Is all this expected and thought of as guaranteed?

A friend and I have been talking about this sort of thing recently (you know who you are, hello!) and I told her that, with the way things are, I'm not even sure if I want to be posting digital art. It's a real shame because I like my art, but there isn't anywhere that's friendly for it anymore. I've considered using tumblr again, but they've been keeping the lights on for several years so really can't tell how much longer they'll be around. And also of late they've been treating their user base like shit.

My friend brought up that the 'argument' that some people present to her when she expresses her grievances with how creators are treated on the internet is something along the lines of: don't let it bother you that much; you should be creating for yourself anyway. I'm sure she is writing for herself first and for her pleasure. So am I. If I weren't, then I'd quit making altogether. That said, I don't think it's stupid to want to be seen. Not popular per se, just seen.

I had said to her that we ought to take being selfish in making to its most extreme and not share anything online. Not publicly, anyway. It's nice in theory to think about what might change if there wasn't any new art or fanfiction to "consume". If there was a sudden standstill. If all of this was done internally rather than in the public online eye. That's about the point I'm at with my art. I am so tired of all of this.

Lately I've been thinking of what I might do with my art if I don't post it. I still like to draw. I went to school for it and, despite not really liking my art major, still came away a better artist than I entered. I've found some comfort in purchasing cheap frames from different stores in the area and building a personal, physical gallery for my digital art. I take measurements of the frame and then make a digital canvas to fit that ratio. Print out the result on quality matte paper (or something with little gloss) and then I can display some of them properly in my apartment. I thought of it while I was working on an art piece for someone in my family, and thought I can do this for myself, too. And I can do this for others at any time; maybe it can be enough for me to make my work for people that matter to me and to be completely "selfish" with it.

Still, the thing is that I want to post my work. I want to share it more widely, but it's just not a great online environment for it at the moment.