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!!!!!!
Nov 9, 2024
Related Recs
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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
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This is hard to explain because it requires the understanding of what is was like for me to make several feature films for next to no money with a crew of friends who were being paid nothing, but it has become important to me to sometimes create work devoid of any financial consideration. I get asked to make music videos every so often and have not been paid for one in over four years. Which is fine. Doing something with the understanding that it is not a financial transaction, and thus ought to be categorized as “for the art” forces me to remind myself why I even ostensibly enjoy creating anything in the first place, which is increasingly easy to lose sight of considering the rotten and broken state of the industry in which I have chosen to work.
Apr 26, 2022
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