Exciting news, Kindred Spirits!
With the launch of my upcoming product line – the Real Things Collection – I’ll be launching a Patreon page: my new subscription-based community for kindred spirits.
Why Patreon?
If you aren’t familiar with Patreon, it is an online platform for artists to curate a private community and share exclusive content for paid subscribers. Most importantly for me, Patreon is a creative home outside of social media.
I’m planning a very affordable subscription model, and my hope is to grow an inspiring community of kindred spirits eager to nurture their creative habits together.
I’ll be sharing more of what exactly that will look like as Launch Day approaches, but for now, here’s a little bit more on why I’m very eager to see you inside this new community:
Over the past few years, I’ve been noticing how social media has affected my creative process as an artist.
The pressures to share your work immediately after creating it, or creating it simply to have something to share, the pressures to create work that will catch the attention of the algorithm, or the addicting nature of reels, and how everything about social media is fine tuned to make addicts of us all … all of it is alarming.
But I’m concerned specifically with how the algorithm threatens The Artist, and the calling of the creative life.
If creativity is about slow growth, observation, patience, reflection, rest, playfulness, and taking risks without fear, then social media and its algorithms, and the way it strengthens our desires for instant gratification — is slowly molding all of us into Sameness.
I know that my struggles with social media may not be your struggles. Maybe you have stepped away from social media, or maybe you have great boundaries and are able to keep it in its place.
As I’ve wrestled with my interaction on Instagram over the past few years, and spent less and less time on it, I’ve felt the lack of something as well.
My Patreon page is my personal solution to the problem: a private creative community away from targeted ads and algorithms.
Regardless of your relationship with social media, my Patreon page will be a place that takes the effects of social media in our lives and culture, into consideration.
I don’t think we should fear social media, but the ways in which it has seeped into the creative process are important to be aware of lest we as creative beings unintentionally succumb to its influence.
The more I grow as an artist, the more I realize that if I am not actively aware of the dangers of social media (on my brain and on my craft), I could easily fall victim to them.
And you know what I’m going to say: I’d rather be the heroine!
We shouldn’t feel tempted to create for The Algorithm, but that is a real threat. We shouldn’t feel like we can only justify our creative pursuits unless they bring in money, but that’s a threat too. We shouldn’t feel like “everyone else is already doing it, and doing it better, so why should I?”, but that’s another threat. We shouldn’t react out of fear toward AI, but we should be very aware of the threats it poses to real creativity.
Bottom line: fear is the antithesis of the creative spirit.
Fear has no place in our creative efforts, and yet, I often feel it creeping into my own creative process.
I’ve been thinking about this question a lot over the past few years:
What is the best way to resist these creeping threats to the creative life?
More than anything, and just like the heroine’s journey, this battle takes place within ourselves.
That feels so counterintuitive to me. I’m not saying that a heroine shouldn’t fight for anything outwardly. Not at all.
But I am saying that creativity is a very personal journey, and there is plenty of room to fight passionately for a creativity built on love and joy in our everyday lives, in a way that will benefit everyone around us!
Creativity is both a tool and a gift.
I have found it to be very true that the creative gifts I’ve been given are tools to fight my inner battles.
My creative life has revealed my weaknesses in sometimes frightening ways, but my creative gifts also give me what I need to build my strengths.
What an amazing gift! A gift that each of us has received.
One of the quotes I’m using in my new collection is this one by Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time:
“We do not love each other without changing each other.”
And this one from Little Women:
“Love is a great beautifier.”
I am not about to tell you the specifics of living out your personal creative journey.
(My Patreon page will be more about living out a creative philosophy than following a list of practical tips.)
But I do believe that love, not fear, is the foundation of all the answers in our creative growth.
More on what to expect from my Patreon community (including our motto and four guiding principles) HERE.
