I wrote a post last week about feeling stuck and couldn’t press publish. It felt too vulnerable at the time. I was too IN IT, so I let it rest until it felt safe to release it into the world. (Curious? You can read it here, or hit the OLDER POSTS button down below.)
Even just writing it down, without sharing, made it easier to look at. Writing it out gives me observational distance, a way of getting it out of me so that I can actually see what I’m avoiding.
What I realized is that I am afraid of building another job or business that repeats the patterns I’ve followed before. My body flat-out refuses to do it. And I’m holding on to a lot of shame around wanting a business that is not measured by traditional metrics of productive success – dollars, views, traffic, transactions, conversions. I’m not saying those don’t matter. I’m saying that I can’t use those as my versions of success or fulfillment. I’ve tried. The anxiety of trying to chase a measuring stick that I can’t control – that’s entirely dependent on algorithms and paying for clicks – and using it to determine my worth and value isn’t something I’m willing to keep doing.
The business I want to build has to feel good – for me, and for the people who support it. Maybe that is a lot to expect out of a business, especially in a world where we treat it as *just business*, a thing that is supposed to fill our bank accounts rather than a vessel for restoring ourselves and each other. I need whatever I build next to be a vehicle for joy, pleasure, and connection. I need it to feel rejuvenating, creative, and supportive, not simply a way to produce and consume.
There’s a lot I could say about what doesn’t feel right, but I’d rather explore what does. In doing the inner work, both alone and with support, of uncovering what feels good by way of talking about my work, the concept of invitations keeps coming up – and whether that’s simply serendipitous or a word that’s speaking deeply to my subconscious, it feels like a way in.
So much of selling feels like shouting at people to BUY MY THING. But what if it could instead be: Would you like to come experience art? How can we make something that feels delightful for both of us? What if art could connect you to your own aliveness, the abundance and absurdity of what it is to live in this world? If I think about blasting my work out into the world, I want to curl up into a ball and never come out of hiding. But if I think about inviting people to my house and showing them all of my favorite photos on my own walls, or taking photos underwater in my backyard, or holding all meetings in my pool, that feels truly, deeply satisfying.
The thing is, selling to strangers isn’t what gets me excited about putting my photos or my words into the world. What I desire more than anything is to know or get to know the people I work with, to really see them, to know that what we make or what is bought has meaning and value and is treasured by the people who get to experience it. Making something for the sake of selling a million copies isn’t what gets me excited about sharing any of my work. Making something and knowing that it was of service and connected another human to a feeling of delight or helped them feel alive or feel seen is what my body actually desires.
This feels like the real reason I struggled with photography jobs that required churning out lots of disposable images – but I misread it as there was something was wrong with me that I couldn’t *just make it work* in a world where photos and art are becoming disposable, made to be used once and then forgotten. And that’s also why I can’t just throw my photos up on a website or platform and hope for hordes of anonymous internet users to buy my work. That’s not actually what I desire. What sounds dreamy is actually getting to talk to real humans to find art that’s meaningful to them or that can be delightful in multiple ways, figure out what fits best in the space they have, or make custom art just for them.
Changing my relationship to capitalism has made me ask myself what it feels really, truly pleasurable to buy, invest in, and support. If there is a silver lining to the system we have, it’s – in theory – that we have options and we get to choose what we invest our dollars in. When I can, that usually means following the joy of discovering someone who makes something that speaks to my soul, that lets some inner part of me be seen on the outside. I love investing in the work of other artists and creatives whose work is an expression of being alive, that feels like it connects me to myself, another person (the one who made it), and the earth in some way.
So here’s where I’m going: someday, I will have an online home for all of the work I want to share or sell, but until then, there is simply an invitation. The invitation is: can we spend time together – a phone call to chat about what photos you desire to make or how you want you or your work to be seen, or how you want to hang art in your house but aren’t sure where or how big or what you even like, or even that you like a photo you’ve seen here but aren’t sure what happens next to bring it into the real world. I’m looking for deeply feeling, vibrant, and conscious collaborators, and I’m hoping you’ll be one of them.