Thoughts on being an artist and privacy.

As an artist who expresses herself through the medium of digital construction, I’d like to introduce Mommess as a full — and connected — body of work. If people “get” any given thread, great. It should lead them to the whole. If someone discovers the larger through-lines and groks the meaning of this sprawling digital thing, great. My titles and tags are loss^t leaders at best, designed that way. The work of understanding will, if it’s meant to, happen within the viewer, because understanding always happens inside the viewer.

If it doesn’t, well who cares? This is my art. (I feel like Bob Dylan for an instant. Thanks Bob)

Why Hide? Maybe to Find Seekers

As an artist, I’ve never wanted too many people to “get my work” at once, because the last time I was the center of attention with a solo exhibition of my art in New York City, it was overwhelming to me. Who wants to answer all those questions about the way your soul-world works, what you see, how you feel, what you know? Let me tell you: fame of this sort is deeply unsettling. I surely did NOT want to answer all those questions, it was like being in a pit of piranhas each taking smiling, eye-shining little bites out of my soul. I was oddly famous for a day, walked out depleted and insane, and never went back to that world.

Side Note on the DL

This happened in part because the waitress-servant in me showed up to my own art opening, and so, I thought I had to answer their questions,¹ which was a huge mistake. I went emotionally naked and ready to serve only to be psychically penetrated, which for obvious reasons, is deeply unsettling.

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Great Books | Loose Concepts

Then this morning, my husband and I discussed one of our favorite historian-essayists² who lucidly weaves hours of stories and thinking together into singular bestsellers. My husband said he saw that I worked like that too, but also said, “no one can discern your through line.” He went on to say with a chuckle, “well maybe like one random person far away might get it. Kind of like in that show Resident Alien, when only one other person in the entire universe understood one guy’s paintings³, but the fate of the world depends on it.”

Ha! Good enough for me. And, good show too. #SillyPopCultureReference

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Building Communities | Commodities

A connected criticism on how artists (and creative workers) are encouraged to show up as showmen

The commonly-understood world of marketing⁴ seeks to ‘help’ us to “build communities” that we monetize. This line of approaching our work means we get nudged to build bigger communities, or at least charge more to our smaller communities. This manifests as communities built around buying things from one another, which is valid, but feels very cold to me, and strikes me as patriarchal and potentially breeding of greed. Sure, money can be a stand-in for energy here. But there have also always been communities built on love, spirit, kinship, with higher value placed on non-patriarchal measurements. But how does one share matriarchal cycles, spirals, and circles which do not feature showcasing, charging, and delivery (a linear, patriarchal model)?

This. Private This.

It goes without saying that all humans need community, and to relate, and to belong. Some turn to digital media to connect for real, and sometimes it works for that. But mostly, and most consistently, it works for larger patriarchal players, cataloging our patterns and using algorithms and pixels to encourage us to participate ever-more in a digital commercial world. This world (which I have loved and made things in for decades), feels a bit too much tool-based, manipulative, using notifications which push into our space, while encouraging our “conversion” to the final purchase. At least that’s how it feels to me today. It’s hard to slide through this digital commerce world unscathed, or with a strong sense of safety and integrity as a creative. Just ask any famous person, the cancelled, or your grandmother.

I’m not satisfied with any of the above approaches to digital community, and would prefer to forge a new path ahead. But how?

And, I crave privacy. This ‘avant blog’ is a way I keep sane while I try to appear normal in a world of measured commerce, missions, monetized communities, and ever-accelerating worldly and digital creations⁵. And, I’m tuning to hope & grace & humor too. None of this is serious, but all of it can feel deadly serious if you experience a breach in your privacy.

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Art is

So, I can really only close this patchy little piece with a quote I read long ago but lost track of the sayer: If I could explain my art in simple sentences, I would. That’s what/why art is. There are layers upon layers of identity, action, stories, viewers, and meanings. And on different days, different layers appear. And one of the viewers is me.

With that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading Mommess. It’s a mom blog in the largest sense of the word, trying to be a beacon in a digital world. I set myself this seemingly impossible task of being a light in a world that’s gone dark yet, I hope I am still holding strong. I hope all you digital warriors are too.

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1. At the core of almost all my stressors in life is the waitress/bartender/customer service skill set on MO Overdrive (MOO)*. This “style” of life works great in certain situations because people love to be served. But serving and carrying other folk’s happiness as one’s own can also be damaging in realms like building a business or being an artist. So… yeah, “No more MOO!” Each moment requires a new, awakened action, that may be the opposite of service. In otherwords, Modus operandi are not always good, even if they are good ones. ↩︎
2. Timothy Snyder. On Tyranny and now On Freedom appear to be tight constructions of multiple astute, lucid ideas backed up with real history becoming collective masterworks on political culture. I see the greater grouping of his works in chronological order are more meaningful than any given bestseller too. Take a look. There’s a reason Freedom is the topic of focus now, and I personally feel it is not a moment too soon. ↩︎
3. Hysterical show. Recap of art episode (2:42) gives you a taste. ↩︎
4. This is my paid profession: marketing. Yeah, I’m not proud, just knowledgeable. ↩︎
5. When I first heard scientists discovered the universe was not only expanding, but expanding at an ever increasing rate, I thought of the Internet. With the advent of AI, digital creations are expanding exponentially, with AI-makers and the concerning potential of AI-makers making more AI-makers… ↩︎