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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).
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).
