Welcome to the Creators Dispatch. A weekly essay about the creative journey! Here I write about being an artist, human and angry woman on the internet. Word of mouth is the most special and radical way of sharing. If what I say here inspires you (or pisses you off 🥰) share my work with the group chat, or your best friends neighbour. It REALLY helps 💖
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The other day while walking home I saw a cat in the alley sitting staring at me. In that moment I wish I had my camera with me, I planned just how I could frame the photo in my head and then the moment after having that thought I judged myself to having a boring sense of taste. A photo like that is boring not worth a film slide and worst of all, cliché. I thought of the art that gets sold at Ikea and how I roll my eyes whenever I walk through the aisles of a Michael’s or a Home Sense and my inner teenager comes out to mock everyone buying store bought art. My composed photo of Cat Sitting In Alley would fit the bill for any mass produced canvas, royalty free site or 2006 flickr slide show (iykyk).
Inner critic so strong it judged the art before it could even me. Woah. Yuck.
I was so grossed out about the speed of which I shut the sweet moment I experianced of “oh look something cute I wanna capture it” down.
There is something special about the cliché. A moment we all experience as a collective. To make cliché, predictable or trite art, really is to just be human. To work to try and express the totally embarrassing and shallow this from us, just cause its kinda cute. Cat sitting in alley is a shared moment we all experience as special and meaningful. And while I am fine dying on the hill of mass produced art is killing artists, I do also think black and white photo of the Eiffel tower in a teen girls bedroom is a shared experience that we could also maybe qualify as a rite of passage.
What is art but trying to share in an an experience?
The totally cringey, embarrassing cliché experience.
To be human is terrifyingly embarrassing. I go for a run and all the runners look around at the other runners to see if they are running correctly. My neighbours ask me what I am planting in my planters this season so we all don’t get it wrong. I check the group chat before leaving the house to see what the dress code for the evening is “what are you wearing?”. But to be honest I love to run too fast or too slow or too wide, I have no idea what to plant in my planters in any season and my two best friends and I never look like we’re all going to the same function, let alone colour coordinated.
If to be human if terrifically embarrassing, why should our art be any different?
Cheers to all the Cat Sitting In Alley photos, the cliché art an the moments we want to capture in our totally embarrassing lives.
And if you’re wondering how we start to get more EMBARRASSING WITH OUR ART! Hang out with me on internet tonight @7pm EST 💃🏻 for MAKE YOUR (BAD) ART!
we’re gonna 🫙
dream and vision our dream artists life (dare I say, plan 😎 it is virgo season after all)
Slay the perfectionism demon that stops your big ideas from coming to life
actually MAKE STUFF with a bunch of artists trying out loud together 💕
FINDINGS
Hamilton zineposium is accepting applications for their Nov 4th fair
knitting to much it gives me a repetitive strain injury
time for all my fav fall rom com in new york vibes AKA Meg Ryan Autum
- herbalism tik toks 🍃 (im learning so much!!!!)
DO YOU EVER POD IS BACK BABY! 💃🏻 this week we’re chatting BRIDEZILLAS and my hate of the word + my highly embarrassing opinions 🫠
I LOVE YOU ALL! Many blessings for your highly embarrassing ideas!!
xx
Phoebe