This is a major brain worm for me. My values in making plays and music are ultimately aligned with small-scale community building, and I hold very closely the idea that the measures of success are the ongoing, mutually beneficial relationships that grow from the initial collaboration. But, my desire is for my play to have a wildly successful run at a well-funded off-broadway theater. My desire is to have an album blow up and make a ton of money and be popular enough to tour on. But values and desires are different things and sometimes not aligned. And at the end of the day I can always say that I stick to my values.... despite those desires also being present.
Anyways, to answer your question...... despite myself, I believe somewhere that my work will only achieve its ultimate goal when it experiences commercial success. Hopefully it does, but at the same time, who cares!!!!!!
Related Recs
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So vulnerable, I have to be sincere. European and American art galleries historically are not only promoters of great art, they are creators of markets. That may be where you could shift focus.
Your worth is that you are young, eating rat, living a life of passion, filth, messiness, body horror (per my comment on such) unique and unknown to those with money. They crave you, not for your art. That's worthless to them. The art, as photographs per Sontag in my other rec, is simply a receipt that they owned a piece of your lifestyle for a moment. No one who will buy your art will likely give a fuck about your art. Stop seeking those. Find the Glengarry Glen Ross customers seeking life, escape from drudgery, a need to prove something to themselves. Let your art be that for them.
Enough bs theory, now for implementation. You won't sell your art, but you can sell the frustration, bloodsweattears, dedication, sacrifice that drips from your post. You can do so by simultaneously reminding yourself you are not creating ART but CREATING art. Your work and worth is not on a canvas. It's not the art. It's in you, the artist.
May 11, 2024
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was talking to my best friend this morning. Does anyone else feel an enormous burden to become rich and famous because they pursue the arts? I feel like a large amount of people don’t appreciate artists unless they become widely recognized. It’s discouraging and upsetting! It makes me rewire what I think the word “success“ means.
Apr 15, 2024
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Practising creativity with a sense of giving your audience want they want. Its okay to create in such a way that fulfils your wishes and interests but at a certain point you must realise that the audience matters.
We’ve all been a part of the crowd and have known what we’ve wanted to see as a member of said audience. Taste, and the creators habits can only show so much, sometimes you must also joyfully do your job.
Give the people what they want in a way that leaves you fulfilled and excited to experience your own art from the perspective of the audience.
Oct 7, 2024
Top Recs from @daphne
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My friend and I happened upon this. Meaning, strive to live your life in a way that makes you feel hot. Dress to feel hot. Talk to feel hot. Do whatever you do, but in a way that makes you feel like you're worthy of the love and adoration and crushes and desire you deserve. This does not mean "sexy" necessarily--hotness is always shifting and has many forms. But reach deep inside and you'll find that your own personal method and mode of hotness can always, and most of the time is, an excellent guide.
Jun 8, 2024
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tough but worth it
Feb 25, 2025
Kind of a genre of medieval paintings, but confirms to me how horny people have always been and how we've always had to sublimate our desires into the dominant culture. It's so weirdly explicit and bizarre, and has so many layers in how it would have been used: a painting to look at, a page in a prayer book to speak as a script, a physical object to touch and venerate and meditate with.... like imagine people fingering this "wound" and being like, yes this is honestly totally about jesus. Crazy.
Aug 2, 2024