Part 1: The double edged sword of Social Media

I feel like “artist” is the one career everyone has an opinion on…. and are not afraid to share it. Whether it be if they consider it to be a viable job (insert eye roll here), how you market yourself, their thoughts on what you create, or what they think you should create, almost every one has something to say about artists.

These days social media has a lot to do with this, both good and bad.

Aging myself here, but back in my high school days, social media wasn’t even a thing yet, the internet was barely even a thing. So when someone said they wanted to be an artist, there really was the question of whether they were cut out for that world or not. You had to market yourself in a whole different way…mainly to galleries. And who are we kidding, if that was the case nowadays, I would likely still be a preschool teacher or working in the basement gym that I taught yoga at ( I did love both those jobs though!). I however prefer to be a goblin hiding out in my pyjamas and painting rather than having to deal with those things, hence an agent or manager would probably have been needed (who Id probably be required to talk to on the phone? No thanks!).

Going to university to study art ($$$) and then getting an agent($$$) and being featured in galleries($$$) was thought to be required in order to be a real artist. That still doesn’t make it easy, or even guarantee that you will be a success. I personally also realized in high school that I absolutely HATED being told what I can and cannot create, so much so that I just barely passed art class all three years of high school. So in that sense, I could see the the concern of loved ones back then when you said you wanted to be an artist. I could have potentially wasted a lot of money and time to realize that art school was not my jam.

Nowadays, you have unlimited information in the palm of your hand. Through this a lot of people started realizing that art school wasn’t the only route you can take to be a successful artist. Now you can make connections and learn new things from almost anywhere in the world at any time of day. This was really what was a game changer for my little introverted heart. I loved being able to learn from so many different creatives and making connections with other like minded people. This support was what really got me to take the steps toward a serious art career. This was definitely the good side of social media.

However, through social media you are also opening up to immense pressure, the pressure of other peoples thoughts and opinions, and the pressure you put on yourself to perform. So many people strive to go viral, constantly searching for the perfect formula and content to get themselves there. I totally understand this, that can be life changing, but also hella overwhelming. One thing I found when finally taking the leap to share my artwork more and “marketing” myself, is it also opens up yourself to A LOT of other people sharing what they think you should or should not do, which could be quite stressful and make you second guess everything you do. Theres the random people who “don’t get” your art, or think you should paint this instead, or think your work isn’t what they consider REAL art. But really, are these the people who are actually buying your art? Odds are, they are not. If someone who wasn’t planning on commissioning something told me “you should paint this instead”, and I said cool would you then buy it for 300 plus dollars? I feel like the answer would likely be no. So why not just create what YOU enjoy and just find your people along the way?

Well there’s also a problem with that.

Once you decide to not listen to the haters and just create, you then end up with the opinions of people trying to sell you the perfect formula to succeed (reels, reels, reels, niche, niche, niche, etc, etc, etc) This added on a whole other layer of stress I wasn’t even aware existed! Don’t get me wrong, these can be helpful, but at what price? Throwing away all the things that you are passionate about and burning yourself out creatively by just focusing on one thing? I fell for the niche trap when starting my Animal Spirit collection. I felt put in a box, and like I didn’t have time to create other things that made me happy and could likely make other people happy too. As a result I found myself wanting to not paint as much and feeling like I need to present myself in a specific way. Not authentic at all. But after much self reflection and conversations with other creatives who felt similar, a wonderful thing happened…..

I realized I just don’t care anymore…

Thanks so much for reading my part 1 ramblings, in part 2 I will be talking more about the pressure to niche down and how I think that is actually killing peoples creativity. Stay tuned!

xo Brandy