The Big Shift - Part Three, Conclusions Leading to Solutions

Understandably, there is a backlash for calling anything a failure in this PC world we live in, but I would protest and say if a creation cannot deliver something solid that really helps its creators move forward and grow then it is a failure and to not acknowledge that is to turn away from its lessons. The point of The Arts was always to support the artists who participated. I did, of course, have a vision where it would have 10,000 subscribers and we would divide each momth's revenue between the costs of providing the platform, of putting the magazine together, and the work that made it an online experience that was valued. Almost like a gallery, was my concept. We never got close in six months. No matter how many likes (Over 9000 reached and 356 likes on the first day of publishing for The Arts | Birth), without substantial progress in subscriber rates, it was going to not meet the goal. It failed. I'm learning. The platform failed. I'm learning.

It succeeded, too! The Arts supported many artists and helped them have more faith in their own work! It provided a graceful exhibit of a broad group of creations around a central theme each month. It delivered on its promise to be both entertaining and inspiring. It provided artists and writers with a new platform, a new way to see how their work could be seen, collaborated with and more. It represented a FAITH that the art, writing, music, film MATTER. It was a HUGE SUCCESS. As a whole project it is, was magnificent.

Possibly this talk of changing gears all sounds paranoid and terribly selfish. The truth is I will continue to promote the creative work of others, as much as I will continue to create and share my work, but I am taking a break for a bit to figure out how and what I want to share in 2014. It feels like the only reasonable thing to do at this moment for my own sense of self-trust.  It feels terribly lonely! Like I’ve just dropped thirty years of technology out of my life for some self-involved motive. Like I'm going into hibernation, and maybe rest will come first after all. I seem to be craving connection to the material world again for the first time in possibly years. I want my artwork and poetry to rest in your hands, on your walls, and not just on your laptops.

"Winter 1," by Vivi Sojorhn on Fresh Paint, 2013

In truth, I’ve never valued my creativity very highly. That is one of my flaws. I’ve always given it away. So the Internet was the best appendage of that flaw that could have come along. Whether it was poetry, scripts, drawings, paintings, singing…whatever I could create…I just shoved it out of the door of my heart. In part, I think because I, like any creative, have been hoping for discovery, for a mentor to come along and give me guidance. Reaching the ripe age of 50 in 2014, though, letting go of that concept seems to be quite rational. Besides this practice meant that I also tended to shove unfinished work out for approval, and that is like a bunch of self-loathing and neediness in a package to be honest.

Winter Backdrop, by Vivi Sojorhn on Fresh Paint, 2013

In fact, I do have mentors, though they aren't aware of it, and really often they are my peers, but I watch how they protect their time and their work and am in awe. Still, they ably share their skills and vision without laying it all out there. For instance, Mark Younkle, who was kind enough to let me share his regular morning Facebook posts as a repeating column in The Arts, How To Dive Deep. Here is an artist who has shared such a limited amount of his work on-line that he delays in creating a blog or website, but in a pithy paragraph, one or two pieces in a collection of artwork, a portrait of himself among his artwork, he makes me HUNGRY to read more and see more. To him, this doesn't seem to be so much a plan as simply the way he is, and he is not a shy man in social media, but he's a self-respecting artist. He also is generous in sharing work that he likes by other artists and composers. All of that reveals an artist and person that many have the desire to know and follow.

To learn to keep my creativity close to my heart until it is ready is my next practice. To work, to do the work, of overcoming my incredible inner resistance against succeeding is my next practice. To transform my domestication and accept my big life is my next practice. Pure and simple. Oh my. Am I saying this? Am I really going to do this?  I cannot tell you how frightening it is to me. Finding a sustainable pace without checking to see if I'm all right. I'm all right. I'm all right.

I’m going to keep my work, my writing and my art to myself until it is ready to be seen. When The Arts Redux comes back it will be with a long-term plan that is sustainable by my own energy levels, by a hefty amount of contributors who are hungry to be seen but willing to hold off sharing until someone is willing to pay a subscription to see it, and a PLATFORM that is as reliable as it can be (like at least three years of stability guaranteed!) I’ll find out how to do all that before heading out onto the waters.

My friends, you may only get a peek into my workshop now and then! Just smidgens of content leaked out on purpose. I’ve been saying it for months now, but I feel like last week shoved me into acknowledging that this is what I must do for myself for no other reason than to show faith in my work and the arts survival. I’m going to have to find a release valve somehow or “I’m a little teapot, short and stout…” will become my theme song! Perhaps, I can record only my progress through this big shift. This is a new practice for me and  acknowledging the value of my own work here on blogspot with bits and pieces might be the thing. I don’t even know that for sure at the moment.

"The Cold Crowd," by Vivi Sojorhn on Fresh Paint, 2013

It feels like a big shift to me. It may look small or obvious to you. It feels like maybe I’m taking myself a little bit more seriously. I hope I can handle the pressure. Only time will tell. I hope other creative people are inspired this year to take their work seriously enough to protect and limit exposure. Because the Internet is turning out to be a rather cold place at times after all. To understand the economics of art is no different than anything else - it is supply and demand, and we only have control of how our supply will be allowed to flow.. We have to support each other's privacy. I keep thinking of an International Artist's Guild to register work at least and find arbiters for indiscretions and outright theft on the Internet and beyond. Imagine an artists' labor union to set a standard expectation for beginners, and to support each other through hard times. A retirement home for artists! Har! We have to begin having faith that the work itself is important enough to hold close, even if we only do it for ourselves. And, if you already do, carry on! I am positive I will have more to say on this issue as time passes. But, I guess what I'm saying is to take your work seriously. What you have to say whether through music, image or writing is valuable if people are looking at it.

Telling My Story in New Ways

I'm giving something new a try. I'm going to make short, as short as possible, videos about things that I am considering as I build an art business. As art is an expression of life, not just my own life, but the life of my family and community, I want a way to annotate it without writing round and round. At least right now. So, here are the first week's posts. None are over five minutes, I promise. When I am inspired to dive deeper into something, I will, doubtless, write. In the meantime, let me know how this lands for you...

Very General Beginnings....

The Art of Exposure

Miss Tesla

How do people stay alive? By “alive” I don’t mean breathing. I mean the immortality of memories attached to feeling and thoughts. I remember my grandparents with aliveness, but now, more than two decades from their vital passing, those memories are depleting, narrowing to a moment, a look, and a short two-sentence conversation. The life of my grandmother is the strongest because we spent more time together, alone, just her and me on the path of breathing. The moments are not made of gifts, though certainly she gave them, I'm sure. They are made of acceptance and exposure of honesty. I was a young child for a time, and was most vulnerable, but then she was an old lady finally, and was most vulnerable, and we accepted each other for that. We shared vulnerability openly, and that has kept her alive in my breathing life for over twenty years.

Artists, writers, filmmakers and actors stay alive for us by making themselves vulnerable in some way as they express something that should be private, that should be shared only with those who are closest. They’ve crossed the line and revealed themselves. Those who pretend to cross the line, but don’t, never last very long beyond their passing breath. We do not know anymore the pretty faces who did not share their pain and fear. The shock an artist shares with us is the thing that sticks to our heart like a virtual post-it note. The less than sane words of a writer struggling to come to terms with darkness that is truly dark, follows us like a sewn on shadow. Admitting that the answers are hard to come by and maybe not lasting is a sensitive difficulty that relieves this audience of our own loneliness. The obvious answers bore us and are easy to forget.

And, yet, to be this vulnerable is abjectly painful to the point of dying a little bit upon the page, the canvas, the stage. The question of whether it is “worth it” comes down to, perhaps, a desire to stay alive someplace else and in some other time and in some other mind. Do artists paint in order to live? Can a writer write without wanting to be remembered? Does the actor slash open his heart in order to distract us from the truth or rather to live with us there for as long as possible? Yes and no. We do this little dying in order to be alive. It's an anti-thesis of existence, but it is the most aware and present moment we can get to while living. 

How is creation a bit of dying? We are attempting to capture the free moment and plug-it-in to something that will make it last. We are trying to understand and also be understood in the same moment if we're on target. We are wrestling with honesty and fantasy to tell it like it is, to show our point of view, to discover and to create a path. A spiritual monk releases the need to make permanent the moment of awareness. Think of the Tibetan monks and their sand drawings. Those are momentary and are kicked away before too much time has passed. That is a practice. The more interested we are in making something that lasts, the more the creation is something about dying.


Just to momentarily change the frame of reference...How is this different from the builder, the entrepreneur, or the mad scientist? Surely, they hope that their inventions, buildings, and discoveries speak of them far and wide, and tell the world that they were here, even after they are gone. That is the future at its heart, and it is also our history. Thinking backwards in business is like a plane flown by flight attendants who are convinced it flies because of a strong jet stream. We, the consumers of that flight, do not sit backwards gazing at the paint upon the sky. We gaze towards the horizon, and hope the pilot is in the nose of the plane. This flight requires less certainty, though, and much more adventure. When we put the cockpit on the ground, someplace in a repetitive system, is it any wonder that accidents will happen? Even the most automated creations must be constantly updated for the moment of choice.

As full of pain as a child who is unsure that she’s loved and approved of, or as horrified as the loss of control in an aged body, discomfort drives me to to face my fears rather than seek comfort. When I commit to one or the other, the choice I make decides whether I will stay alive or die on the spot, and it happens every day. Do I want to live in the memories of my children, my community, and my culture because I admit I am every day ordinary and vulnerable? Yes! I do not want to fade as a fake and disappointing superhero. I want to create the incredible disclosure! I am willing to reveal my pain and fear that is so bad that I don’t know what will happen when I flip the switch on this creation. Grin. It is daring to come to the breath of this moment knowing that in the next and the next and the next I am susceptible to the death of being comfortable but forgotten. I want to know that when death comes I have lived as transparently as is possible for me, whether well-received or rejected. That's how I'll know I've done my best in what I can do in this world.