Monday I woke up and refreshed the notifications on my phone until my heart felt like it was beating in my brain. I’ve had my work “go viral” a handful times in the last year, but having half a million look at your face reading a poem on what is means to be a woman in the year 2023 is a level of fucking wild I do not think our brains are meant to comprehend. Or at least, my brain cannot currently comprehend.
I think it would be easy for me to write something like each time I share my work and get seen I get scared and more vulnerable, or maybe each time I share my work and get seen I get better at being seen. Or another internet essay on the perils of how much I hate the internet. Chalk up a big feeling of being seen into something I hate or thing to be moralized, not investigated or held with nuance.
Because we live in such a beautiful time of sharing art. I maintain we are living in the best time to be an artist. No kings guarding our path to the court, no publishers denying access to an audience, no patrons blocking us from a dream. You and I can simply hit “publish” and have our time altering creations out into the world – I think that is one of the most beautiful and generous things we can do on this earth. Share that one small expression of soul, thing, idea. In any venue or forum, to your mother and brother and lover and friend or to random strangers on the internet.
Art cannot be measured in views and likes. The watercolour of art is not quantifiable by the binary of algorithm. Expression, feeling, magic. Art is unquantifiable and algorithms only work to quantify our creations.
So of course it feels insane when thousands of people are looking at your face reading the most vulnerable thing you’ve ever written. I am expressing a watercolour and a like can only be an expression of a number, not a feeling. There can only be friction found in art online, no perfect fit puzzle piece is available if the speakers are not expressing themselves in the same language. The bravery of standing on the stage reading a poem circle back around to exposed raw nerv again the second the zero’s and ones creep into the aisles of the audience.
Artists made the internet what it is today. There would be no Zuck on a surfboard without the labour or artists posting their work for free, keeping people on an app to sell ad space for. (and while I am here – Zuck literally owes artist money but that is another essay for another day).
Plainly– The very square peg of the internet, the very round hole of art.
So, I must always create for me first. I must always find comfort and solace in my art and expression. Because I know from looking around on the internet, that love and goodness, and likability are not things I can find in a binary.
And You must always create for you first. We are the only audience that needs to be content with our work, selves and expression. We must create for ourselves, first. The internet is just a bonus.
FINDINGS 🗺️
COMMUNITY AID REQUEST! Friend and fellow artist and galaxy seeker stylo star is living through what I can only describe as the most nightmarish housing situation and she needs to help to protect her art and wellbeing. Save our stylo.
Speaking of making our art and sharing it online! I am teaching my most popular workshop MAKE YOUR (BAD) ART Saturday Sept 14th. Free.99, we will journal and vision under the virgo new moon our dream artists life so we can ~finally~ hit send on the poem thats been in your drafts folder.
Last weeks essay from
Plums 🫠 is all I can say reallyThis apricot cake I am have been waiting for the weather to cool down a little so I can turn my oven on.
My little sisters T.V blog (shocking twist, I come from a family of opinionated artists ™️)
Letting my cat sleep in the fruit bowl even thought its gross (but she’s really cute)
Sharing my poems into the world like I am casting spells for more art
big love and many blessings on your creative journey and sharing and creating (keep going!)
xx
Phoebe 🪄
LOOOOOOVE THIS 💖