I just opened up the app and counted: as of this writing I have eight active accounts on Instagram.
Each of them is unique.
Each of them is maintained.
None of them are popular.
Look, I am not some kind of dabbling influencer wannabe, just so we’re clear on that point.
I just see it as a tool for expression. It is a blank wall upon which to scrawl the products of my art, as tempting as a passing train car might be to a graffiti artist with a backpack full of fresh spray paint.
It is there, so I use it.
My most recent work on the platform has been me posting monochromatic photos: I only upload black and white pics that I’ve captured, from textures and abstract shadowy artsy-fartsy illusions to simple monotone landscape shots from my wandering adventures.
It is not meant to build a following or create a brand or generate an audience or—forbid—become a revenue source. It is nothing more than a creative outlet that caught my inspiration one rainy spring day and has grown the barest semblance of metaphorical legs that has kept it going for a couple months (so far).
Art is expression.
Art is filling blank spaces with humanity.
Art is using the tools that are right in front of you to spread a bit of joy, drive a taste of curiosity, and cast a feeling out into the universe without knowing what the result might be—if any at all.
It is the silent warrior.
Terms FROm this POSt
- audience
- Creativity is often a dance between creator and audience. Art can exist in a vacuum, of course, but the perception of art by a receptive human mind seems to me to a critical half of the creative equation.
- brand
- Even seasoned advertising and marketing folks sometimes struggle to pin this definition to the ground, but in essence it implies more than a logo or a tag line. A brand is the entirety of how one is perceived by the public, and it can be inclusive of, yes, logos, colours and names, but also values, vibe, and style. Corporate brands are common, but personal brands are an idea that has gained particular prominence in the internet era when people put on a public persona that represents their effort to influence others or promote their ideas, politics, or work.
- influencer
- I think people assume because I post online so much that I’m trying to become an influencer, by which I mean the type of person who creates waves of content with the intentionality of making a living from being a kind of quasi advertising personality. I’m not that. I create because I enjoy it, crave it, live for it… and if people happen to read it, cool.
- inspiration
- A vague concept I mention frequently on this blog but rarely define, I think the notion of being inspired is really at the foundational level, the seeds of creativity. Without inspiration, without muse, without spark creativity is just work or repetition or rote effort. Inspiration does not necessarily need to be monumental or epic or of the highest quality, but rather it is what is at the start of every creative process …until it flowers and drops more seeds of inspiration and the cycle repeats.
- metaphorical
- Some of us are literal, and many of us think in metaphor and analogy. I often drift into the latter category and I will fully admit it shades my writing and how I try to explain things. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of this and call it out. Oh, how meta.
- monochromatic
- I stumbled onto a fascination with black and white photography in my early twenties when I was hanging out with some people from a conference at an art gallery in our capital city. One of the folks in that group must have conveyed the right passions towards the form into my impressionable brain in its formative state and ever since I have been in love with the idea of images that lean into shape and shadow over colour. I use this blog to subtly share that love.
