8 Clicks from Nowhere Productions ䷀

Category: [22] Rights & Wrongs

How creativity builds bridges across difference and indifference.

Chapter List

  • Worth It

    We’ve all done it. We all should do it, at least occasionally. I do it ever few months, in fact.

    I Googled myself.

    For years, the result has been a modest list of links, many to my own websites, but often to a variety of articles from old jobs and public feeds from old accounts. It’s been a trip down memory lane.

    When I Googled myself the other day, though: I was greeted with an AI summary of my digital footprint, and a generated outline of who the search algorithm thought I was as a person.

    It wasn’t completely wrong, but it wasn’t a hundred percent accurate, either.

    As a guy who spends his free time in the pursuit of creative public expression I gotta admit: I’m a little frustrated that all the work I’ve put into building profile and connections online in the last twenty years has amounted to a couple paragraphs in an LLM.

    Search and social, after all, were the bridges between the stuff I was putting out there and the rest of the universe—but lately, not too many people are crossing it.

    “Keep making stuff.” I tell myself. “People will find it. And if it entertains just one person, inspires one other human to keep the spark alive… maybe it was worth it. Right?”

    This is a cross post from Of Poets & Processors.

  • Summer Showing

    I was back at it in the park recently, sitting cross-legged on a blanket under a tree, far from the path and people, with my synth propped up on a portable camp table, still trying to find a summery sound.

    Thanks to a new addition to my gear collection I was no longer playing with headphones, but rather I had propped up my small speaker amp nearby, set it to a reasonable volume, and was filling the local air with a bit of my chaotic noodling.

    It was not intended to be a performance.

    The reality of being outdoors in a park making art, taking photos, or playing music is that it is public. Eyes will connect. Heads will turn.

    We travelled to Europe a few years ago and did a lot of plein air sketching in very public places and it’s a whole other thing, let me tell you, to sit near a few thousands of wandering tourists and do your craft.

    Back in my little park a man on bike with his dog stopped to look, eyes connected, head turned. He stood in the grass a respectful distance away as if he expected me to crack out a banger and was getting ready for the show. I tapped out the first few bars of a Bach Prelude I had been practicing earlier that week and which was still stuck in my fingertips.

    He lingered for another couple minutes then cycled away.

  • Free Pics

    I give away a lot of my art and photography.

    I don’t often or consciously think of it like that, but in the moments when I am challenged on the value of what I make I also tend to get snagged on this little reality: I give a lot of it away for free and don’t think twice about it, either.

    There is a value proposition mixed in there, of course.

    Value comes from demand and demand is not automatic: that is to say, my photos, say, only have value if someone wants them and just because I take them doesn’t mean they automatically have a corresponding someone who wants them. 

    Value, in this way is a bit circular. You need to create the value by creating an audience, and you create an audience by lowering the value, often to zero, of your work so that the audience can have it, learn to love it, and eventually want to pay for it.

    At least, that’s one way.

    I’ve never consciously done that… but I have done it unconsciously. I have taken photos on my own time and motivation and become the guy that someone has said, yes please, here’s money, give us more. It really has worked that way. 

    But maybe you have to give a lot away first.

    And maybe too, you have to be okay with something you made having a value that is something other than  a cash transaction.

  • Respect Yourself

    I had a recent reminder that the biggest struggle in finding your creative (and likewise, your professional) voice, more often than not is remembering to respect yourself.

    Generally it is so obvious a thing when you write it or when you read it, but often it is the least obvious thought when we find ourselves mired in a situation or relationship where respect has been compromised.

    If you are one of the lucky few who is bolstered by self-confidence and unhindered by self-doubt, congratulations. Because I would wager the bulk of us need the occasional nudging reminder that when it comes to your creative hearts and souls no one is looking out for you and your interests, your time, your experience and expertise, nor you as a human being with the same attention and care as you are.

    Respect yourself.

    Guard your talents.

    Own your schedule.

    Stand by your skills. 

    And don’t work with people who either disrespect or take advantage of any of those things for their imbalanced benefit.

    But enough whinging… now go make something.