The internet age is so strange...fascinating and insidious all at once. It IS the world for me in so many ways now. I take it for granted-- online is just part of the day. Thinking back to high school, back when I was abstractly planning plotting and dreaming my epic and creative future... I didn't have this thing... I had a phone that plugged in to the wall and had a long curly cord. It lit up with blue fluorescent lights when it rang. Oh the internet EXISTED, but it didn't touch me. It seemed like alien and foreign nonsense. I refused to have an email address--it offended me. I was also sure my future contained artistic glory of some sort... I was sure that all i had to do was get better... be talented, make meaningful work and that the rest would just make sense... I'd be in Vanity Fair in some bit piece about the young and scrappy artists of New York today, wearing beat up engineer boots and faded, black, paint-covered jeans...magically I would have become some waifish Patti Smith lookalike, of course.
...not that I can blame the internet for things being as they are or are not... and i wonder how we would have had to "sell and market" ourselves if the internet had never happened? I simply find it so strange and sometimes off-putting to feel the need to create "content," to cultivate a "persona" and to put it out there as some necessary aspect of being an independent artist type... isn't it a little strange?
Well, I'be never been very good at it. I am flakey with all those disciplinary things... regular exercise, yoga, bookkeeping, blogging... all the healthy habits that I feel like I am supposed to have mastered and hold in perfect balance like some tattooed Shiva... yeah I'm not so good at that.
What I AM good at is making stuff... like a lot of stuff... usually with lots of colors in it. And honestly, I like that. I like all these weird, mismatched creations. I Like being surrounded by colors. I have no desire to create a pert little lifestyle blog full of perfect sunny days and well-behaved, charming children... but I do want to celebrate the small things that make me stupid happy. Like this rainbow cake I made. I don't really have the chops or patience to take lots of lovely pictures and make a charming tutorial-- I'm fucking lazy on that front, okay?-- but I do feel like i've done something MAGICAL just to look at the thing. So here's to magic...
...not that I can blame the internet for things being as they are or are not... and i wonder how we would have had to "sell and market" ourselves if the internet had never happened? I simply find it so strange and sometimes off-putting to feel the need to create "content," to cultivate a "persona" and to put it out there as some necessary aspect of being an independent artist type... isn't it a little strange?
Well, I'be never been very good at it. I am flakey with all those disciplinary things... regular exercise, yoga, bookkeeping, blogging... all the healthy habits that I feel like I am supposed to have mastered and hold in perfect balance like some tattooed Shiva... yeah I'm not so good at that.
What I AM good at is making stuff... like a lot of stuff... usually with lots of colors in it. And honestly, I like that. I like all these weird, mismatched creations. I Like being surrounded by colors. I have no desire to create a pert little lifestyle blog full of perfect sunny days and well-behaved, charming children... but I do want to celebrate the small things that make me stupid happy. Like this rainbow cake I made. I don't really have the chops or patience to take lots of lovely pictures and make a charming tutorial-- I'm fucking lazy on that front, okay?-- but I do feel like i've done something MAGICAL just to look at the thing. So here's to magic...
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