[Follow on anecdote] Lousy photo of letter is from settlement museum on Dejima / a small human-made island in Nagasaki which was exclusive foreign trading post for 100s of years / first by Portuguese, then by Dutch.
I wrote with a quill and ink as a fictional “letter home”.
Written as a letter to a friend, somehow thought good idea to put here so i don’t lose it. Not sure but hey… no one’s paying attention anyhow.
Hey [redacted],
I hear you on these hypocrites, bootlickers and carpet baggers who talk a big game but at the end of it, they spend all their “organizations energy on managing the organization” rather than actually doing stuff.
I learned a long time ago (somehow) in my punk rock youth that “talk minus action equals zero” and in that same youth, was idealistic enough to want to actively support a lot of different organizations in Utah and BC but every time I went to volunteer my (then healthy and strong) body for action (i.e. put me on those anti-whaling ships! send me out on desert missions! put me on a lookout tower!) the only answer was “you can help with fundraising… Why don’t you go door to door and ask for money?” Not impressed.
And, years later, I still see the same organizations spending all their money begging for money. E.g. After all my years of working to normalize cannabis, I see the suits and celebrities jumping into the mix and congratulating themselves and I wonder: where the fck were you on those rainy days at the capital decades ago? Where were you lobbying and writing letters and to policymakers and showing up at inane committee meetings? I hear you are running your mouth about stock prices and making cute branded labels for your factory growing weed blah blah blah.
As such, somehow I realize that despite my usual social and community-building nature, when it comes to getting shit done, I just do what I want to do on my own terms and float out into the world and don’t expect to see an impact for decades later. Been this way for my documentary films, punk rock fanzines, chap books of poetry and other arts and crafts… + Realized that I could be an artist who spends half of his time applying for grants and sending and submissions to be rejected (another quarter of my time complaining about the injustice of it all) or else I could just go hustle some day job for temporary times (goodness know i’ve had a few) and make art on my own terms and put it out there without any expectation of acceptance or money. Fuck Stats, Make Art.
Somehow I almost accidentally ended up this way as I teased with a flirting level of fame before vanishing again. Seldom seen indeed. I think of Henry David Thoreau self publishing 100 copies of Walden, dead at 37, no one remembers his contributions to pencil making or the impact that came hundred plus years later. That’s the kind of hero.
After being gone for Utah from sometime and ending up back there in recent years after my Mom died and hiding out, i saw all the precious places polluted by REI shopping yuppi3s and credit card wielding “ski bums” who think they’re making a difference by voting for “that other party”, left again as fast as I could and proclaimed my lifelong dream to never go back to Logan (the only town I’ve ever been busted for weed).
I even went to my favourite holy sacred hot spring up fifth water diamond fork on trails that I literally helped build and pools that I hauled up bags of cement to shore up the rocks to find it overflowing with BYU students, I stripped down to my naked self and took a nice shower in the waterfall and all my splendour and quickly cleared the area out for a nice leisurely soak. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
All this is to say that I see you and hear you and admire you and you got a guy out here respecting your work and your life and understanding what you’re laying down about Lycra knuckleheads with their lawyers and mortgages.
Told a younger friend the other day who’s getting caught up in the rat race that all these asshole billionaires that end up in the news about not paying taxes or going to space, they’re all bunch of workaholics who never see their family, never just to get hang out in a barn with an illicit smoke and some used records, and hell my mother-in-law cooks as well as any restaurant and the best views are for free. And if you want to be all fancy, I built a house on a tropical island one time for $50K and another time for $70K, you can’t buy a carport most places for that. You can get your own campland near Gary’s outpost near Shasta for under 100… I’ll tell you about Paradise, the way John Prine sings about it. Move to the country, grow peaches… work little except for the real work.
I make art, document the art and document, the documenting of the art and I’ve done some of my whole life (as you’ve noticed in this personal archeology project).
Digression: There are paths for an artist – to chase fame or fortune, or personal satisfaction, or admiration from others (there are others). You can choose a couple of these *aims* but to get all at once is probably/possibly a bit much to ask. As for me, i make things for an audience 100 years from now and to amuse myself (and now so son Ichiro has a record of me).
Ergo: to make sure i am making “things i really wanna make”, I don’t check traffic/view numbers, I don’t make sales funnels, I don’t gather information, and at this point I don’t sell anything aside from paintings and poems on special request… but, in doing “all of this” project, I couldn’t help but notice a few notable numbers popping up, 420 everywhere. This is all, i am amused.
Oh yeah, a friend in Jamaica was concerned that he wasn’t getting “paid” for a video he appeared in which had more views in a day than all the rest of my little videos put together. He was convinced it was enough to buy a house, I sent him this detailed statistical report. .11 cents. Yeah, i’m a bigtimer on the tubes :).
Strange as it goes as feels sometimes like i was writing messages to a future self as i reflect back on words i wrote then but need moreso now,
ergo:
Art makes the future, make for yourself first – if you don’t “feel it” don’t waste your time. Channel a mix of joy and anguish and mix with honesty.
Don’t cheat yourself or any potential audience. Don’t pander and don’t “give em what they want” – this process might get lonely, you will see other “enjoy” the buzz of immediate attention but this is a sugar-rush which likely doesn’t last long. Instead, prepare yourself for the long haul of making creations which will inspire the generation behind you.
There are wee doppelgänger of you growing up, struggling with identity and understanding – maybe in school or maybe in retirement – you seek (unwittingly perhaps) exactly what you are capable of creating.
Visualize them if you desire an audience and then share your work, standing behind your creation with integrity, and let the audience breathe life and meaning into your offerings. Your rewards will come in mysterious ways.
But the reward isn’t the point – self-fulfillment and endless giving of creativity is your compass.
From a response to a discussion somewhere at some time…
“Like the venerable Mr. Christopher Trottier (@atomicpoet) pointed out,… the crazy thing is, if you make awesome art, the stats (i.e. likes, tweets, subscribers, followers, paycheques, accolades, trophies…) automagically come.
It’s when you go chasing stats that you might get the quick sugar-high of cheap satisfaction but no one’s going to give a shit in a week, let alone 100 years from now.
Of course I understand that “business objectives” require performance and things going “up and to the right,” but that is accomplished by being interesting, pushing your envelope, being true to your authentic self, and respecting your audience.
Ergo: Roll your own media. Fuck stats, make art. Create for yourself, let others look over your shoulder. Personal expression is the pinnacle of the assortment of digital creation tools and distribution methods we (albeit awkwardly) call social media.
Make for yourself first – if you don’t “feel it” don’t waste your time, or others attention.
Channel a mix of joy and anguish and mix with honesty.
Don’t cheat yourself or any potential audience.
Don’t pander and don’t “give em what they want” – this process might get lonely, you will see other “enjoy” the buzz of immediate attention but this is a sugar-rush which likely doesn’t last long.
Instead, prepare yourself for the long haul of making creations which will inspire the generation behind you. There are wee doppelgänger of you growing up, struggling with identity and understanding – maybe in school or maybe in retirement – you seek (unwittingly perhaps) exactly what you are capable of creating.
Visualize them if you desire an audience and then share your work, standing behind your creation with integrity, and let the audience breathe life and meaning into your offerings.
Your rewards will come in mysterious way, not unlike the mysterious red envelopes of Chinese New Year tradition.
Can often be a fuzzy difference between craft and art / technique vs idea – I feel that art requires intent, honesty, integrity and emotion, plus the element of considered craft to execute vision.
Sure tis one thing to play an instrument, write words, apply paints to substrate…, it’s a whole other thing to open up your heart and guts to expose to the world.
Dangerous, beautifully so – even when not beautiful – although often not noticed immediately.
Consider doing so daily. If you want your creations to live a legacy of centuries rather than moments.
PS
Indeed, pressure from others implies our creative work is worthy only when validated by a “gatekeepers” (publisher, label, printer, award etc) – this a false assumption and the opposite is exampled by heroes like Vincent van Gogh, Henry David Thoreau, and dozens more who “self-published/distributed” and made what was inside them because that was their yearning desire.
Ignore the Gatekeepers, Don’t get Precious, Publish it all and let the future sort it out.
{With talk these days of the fleeting nature of social media “success” and [purchasing flase attention and affection… i offer these thoughts adding to a conversation sparked by Wayne Shaddow} Take it if you need it, if not, just let it go.
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Art makes the future, make for yourself first – if you dont “feel it” dont waste your time.
Channel a mix of joy and anguish and mix with honesty. Dont cheat yourself or any potential audience.
Don’t pander and don’t “give em what they want” – this process might get lonely, you will see other “enjoy” the buzz of immediate attention but this is a sugar-rush which likely doesn’t last long.
Instead, prepare yourself for the long haul of making creations which will inspire the generation behind you. There are wee doppleganger of you growing up, struggling with identity and understanding – maybe in school or maybe in retirement – you seek (unwittingly perhaps) exactly what you are capable of creating.
Visualize them if you desire an audience and then share your work, standing behind your creation with integrity, and let the audience breathe life and meaning into your offerings. Your rewards will come in mysterious way, not unlike the mysterious red envelopes of Chinese New Year tradition.
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