Absolutely stellar. Thanks for gifting this read on my birthday. Love the razor-sharp response to people asking what you're working on. All of us with our creative agencies are certainly building a future, not just for ourselves, but everyone who occupies this current realm of space and time. Everything we do, what we consume, how we consume it and how we generate endless future projects based on our inner rich worlds affects our inner circles and vibrates into the masses.
You've helped me to realize that artists and deep thinkers are running on a completely different axis from those in the rest of the world who aren't. We are deeply immersed in our passions, creating value that compounds long after the fact. Let's keep giving ourselves permission to manage our own expectations so we can keep building for future generations. Phenomenal.
Another beautiful essay. I've never had to face that uncomfortable or awkward feeling of having to explain why or what I do to fit someone's idea of what I should be doing. I've just done/made/created my art fairly confidently. Yet it was the rest of my life that had me have all sorts of insecurities about how I thought people may have perceived me as if it mattered. And thankfully, all that dissipated as I got older/wiser. I don't hesitate when I'm working on a piece of my art what someone may think or get offended as it's all in the eyes of the beholder and they'll see what they want to see anyway. Long ago when I had a show somewhere that was not the gallery I normally showed at, a woman got offended by a piece of mine and assumed it was about abuse. She was relating it to her own experiences. She tried to have it removed and thankfully the director of this place gently read her the riot act to a) not touch the art and b) not to assume what a piece truly was about. A side note, the piece had NOTHING to do with abuse but guess that's a moot point.
And on top of that, the woman you refer to was extending her abusiveness to you based on her sence of self-justified rightious outrage toward you. All projection of her own pattern of abuse victimhood she was attempting to defend herself and presumably others against. Fasinating. (as Spock would say with one raised eyebrow)
Yes, right on. Even the curator of that show (not the director but a sub curator outside of that gallery) called me and was defending that woman and asking if I could either remove the piece or let them put a sheet over it. I said absolutely not and had the director side with and support me. Eventually that curator finally saw my side of things and understood that art like most things are in the eyes of the beholder. It's why I chose the quote by Anais Nin at the end of my emails: "We don't see things as They are, we see things as We are". Perception. Like the many facets of a mirrored disco ball reflecting the many sites around it ( I have a disco ball which is why I chose this metaphor).
This past winter I realized one of my primary issues transitioning from consultant to artist & therapeutic arts facilitator was retraining my brain about “work”. I decided to change my pattern: instead of starting my workday in the office on the computer, I began starting my day in the studio & working until lunch. Now I have organized my week so I am only in the office, having meetings, coaching or doing sessions on Tuesdays & Wednesdays. And I’m pretty strict about that. But it took a few months to change my own perception.
Absolutely stellar. Thanks for gifting this read on my birthday. Love the razor-sharp response to people asking what you're working on. All of us with our creative agencies are certainly building a future, not just for ourselves, but everyone who occupies this current realm of space and time. Everything we do, what we consume, how we consume it and how we generate endless future projects based on our inner rich worlds affects our inner circles and vibrates into the masses.
You've helped me to realize that artists and deep thinkers are running on a completely different axis from those in the rest of the world who aren't. We are deeply immersed in our passions, creating value that compounds long after the fact. Let's keep giving ourselves permission to manage our own expectations so we can keep building for future generations. Phenomenal.
Happy Birthday Aryanna! Toward building a future we are not afraid to live in.
Thank you for the bday wishes. To the future! 🚀
Another beautiful essay. I've never had to face that uncomfortable or awkward feeling of having to explain why or what I do to fit someone's idea of what I should be doing. I've just done/made/created my art fairly confidently. Yet it was the rest of my life that had me have all sorts of insecurities about how I thought people may have perceived me as if it mattered. And thankfully, all that dissipated as I got older/wiser. I don't hesitate when I'm working on a piece of my art what someone may think or get offended as it's all in the eyes of the beholder and they'll see what they want to see anyway. Long ago when I had a show somewhere that was not the gallery I normally showed at, a woman got offended by a piece of mine and assumed it was about abuse. She was relating it to her own experiences. She tried to have it removed and thankfully the director of this place gently read her the riot act to a) not touch the art and b) not to assume what a piece truly was about. A side note, the piece had NOTHING to do with abuse but guess that's a moot point.
And on top of that, the woman you refer to was extending her abusiveness to you based on her sence of self-justified rightious outrage toward you. All projection of her own pattern of abuse victimhood she was attempting to defend herself and presumably others against. Fasinating. (as Spock would say with one raised eyebrow)
Yes, right on. Even the curator of that show (not the director but a sub curator outside of that gallery) called me and was defending that woman and asking if I could either remove the piece or let them put a sheet over it. I said absolutely not and had the director side with and support me. Eventually that curator finally saw my side of things and understood that art like most things are in the eyes of the beholder. It's why I chose the quote by Anais Nin at the end of my emails: "We don't see things as They are, we see things as We are". Perception. Like the many facets of a mirrored disco ball reflecting the many sites around it ( I have a disco ball which is why I chose this metaphor).
This past winter I realized one of my primary issues transitioning from consultant to artist & therapeutic arts facilitator was retraining my brain about “work”. I decided to change my pattern: instead of starting my workday in the office on the computer, I began starting my day in the studio & working until lunch. Now I have organized my week so I am only in the office, having meetings, coaching or doing sessions on Tuesdays & Wednesdays. And I’m pretty strict about that. But it took a few months to change my own perception.