#22

I think that segmenting yourself, as in your time, can be useful in helping complete things and give structure. Recently, I’ve found myself getting stuck in “finishing” ruts and it has been difficult to manage everything in the context of other projects, ideas, shows, life responsibilities, etc. The thing that seems to get thrown out most often as it is “lower priority” is making art for the fun of it, and that’s no good, because then I just get tired and aggravated with all the projects that are lining up. I think I’m going to try to set aside a specific day/time a week for doing that.

I think segmenting your “persona” is difficult and complex. I really don’t have a good answer, other than I try to be sort of routine about it, and share the things that I either find interesting and share in the hopes that someone else might find it interesting, or a sense of promoting it out of respect for the venue allowing for the show to be put on, touring acts that might be coming through town and need to pay for gas, etc.

Want to preface this particular point by saying I might be misunderstanding the particular context you mean @eblomquist (and could definitely see how some types of promotion and advertisement can be toxic), but I don’t think it is shameful to promote yourself/your art. I feel like capitalism makes it easy for a lot of us to hide behind a corporation or institution (because it is a normative way to make $$$) and cast a more critical lens onto the ethics of those that are trying to get by/make a living/rely some part on their art.

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#23

I do try to, though it’s not that easy.
I mean, work is work, and it brings along a whole lot of “accessory” activities which one might not love much (for example tax work / beaurocracy or having to sort out divergencies with clients).
But I find that if I am passionate about at least one aspect of a project, these become very tolerable.
I sometimes accept jobs because they are well paid but even then there needs to be something about them I am at least a bit passionate about.

One rule I gave myself is to only work on stuff that is somehow related to music. I still do pretty diverse stuff, from festival communication to cover illus. But I find that the fact that it’s always somehow about music keeps me passionate and motivated. I’ve spent many years working in an agency where we’d make big campaigns for stuff I didn’t care too much about, and that did wear me out on the long run.

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#24

I find it very difficult to separate thing but I also find the lack of separation quite uncomfortable at times. For example: I’m not somebody who shares personal things a great deal across social media channels so much of social interaction on the internet revolves around music. I am acutely aware that those who I went to school with or who are neighbours with me, those who I know in a more professional capacity (outside of music) and so on must probably be quite nonplussed by my music and it feels almost like I’m peeling back more of my outer shell than I’m entirely happy with to have those outside of musical circles seeing this aspect of me.

That’s probably stupid and potentially wide of the topic’s remit too but it was just what the post stirred up!

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#25

I don’t mean the kind of gentle sharing of awareness of the availability of one’s work that is common here on lines…

More the persistent email or Facebook shouting for attention without any pretense of creating a relationship…

I have deep respect for independent artists trying to support themselves, but in my experience those kinds of artists generally seem to avoid treating their supporters as “consumers.”

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#26

I’m a software developer for a living – generally in the area of tool building. First it was for computer games, and now for engineering. I generally don’t want to go home and write code.

There have been a few exceptions: I wrote some experimental VST plugins, with no UI and no support for people who had trouble running them. I made several watchfaces for the Pebble Time a few years ago. I’m comfortable working with Teletype, since its syntax and design principles are nothing at all like what I do at work and I keep my usage of it relatively simple and ephemeral – I don’t even save scenes aside from my standard “poll 16n and pass to ER-301” setup.

Sometimes I think about doing some more DSP coding – Norns or Organelle, or when the DSP layer of the ER-301 is opened up to third parties – but I’m really not very motivated to do it. I’d rather do creative things with the tools someone else built.

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#27

I think this is more of an aside in social media usage though professional application as opposed leveraging it to build an audience, connections, and relationships right? A lot your issue is likely set with perceived tone and intention if I’m understanding correctly?

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#28

Exactly right… And the problem isn’t by any means limited to artists, the whole social media space seems to enable a kind of communication that one hopefully rarely encounters in reality… I think of it as a kind of self-centered shouting…

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