A Beautiful Anarchy

HUNGER > TALENT

BETTER QUESTIONS?

SECOND PLACE

NOW WHAT?

Starting new work means eventually it comes to an end in some form and while the feeling of being done and shipping that latest thing is often euphoric, it often comes with a hangover and an uncertain feeling left by the absence of that thing we’ve been working on, like our constant companion is just suddenly gone. You’re not the only one feeling a little bit like you might be drifting, so what do you to next?

A LIFE AT THE IMPROV

The rules of improv are not complicated and, depending who you ask, they vary, but there are 4 that are universal, guiding principles that keep things on track and keep the actors moving headlong into the funny rather than those long awkward moments that foretell a comic death. That’s not to say they guarantee success, no improv actors in the world have been spared the crickets in the audience that signal a wrong turn into the territory of the unfunny. Risk and uncertainty is the stage on which ...

FEED THE STARVING ARTIST

A pragmatic 15-minute episode about connecting with the audience for whom we make what we create, and from whom we hope to make both a life and a living, for those of us who do this as not only craft but commerce. No one likes talking about this stuff but I think that’s because it so often lacks soul and humanity. Make this the year you start to intentionally connect with your audience by email. Here’s why.

CROWDSOURCING JOY

Creative people often find their emotional lives connected a little too tightly to their work: happy when things go well, unhappy when the work gets hard or doesn’t get the reactions we hoped. But is art-making about happiness and have we created a desire for the process and the work itself that is a counterfeit for something better? You’re not alone if you experience emotional ups and downs with your work, it’s natural, but I think we can make those ups a little higher and the downs a little le...

DEEPER WORK

I’m a big fan of being intentional about life, and how I spend my time is among the biggest decisions I make, and often, some of the hardest. You’re not alone if you got to the end of this past year and looked back and hadn’t accomplished some of the bigger pieces you wanted to. You’re also not alone if you’re vowing to do better this coming year. But all the vows never help unless you put them in to action. Here are 3 strategies for getting the kind of blocks of time you need to do that. The sh...

WHERE IS YOUR HALL PASS?

You’re not alone in feeling at times like you need permission to operate outside the so-called rules and colour outside the lines. You’re not the only one to ask, “but who wants to hear what I have to say?” or “who am I to put my work out there?” Who are you? The same one-of-a-kind-but-still-totally-different-from-the-rest-of-us kind of human being that any other everyday creative has been through history. We need your art, but more importantly: you need it.

LEARNING TO DROP

One of the most common barriers to starting, finishing, and sharing our work is the crisis of self-confidence that comes from the voices we’ve listened to so long that they become a part of us. Learning to call those voices out, and learning to believe that we can do what we set out to do in the creative process, is a first step. The creative process, no matter what the discipline is always uncertain and it takes an insane amount of belief in our ability to take first steps into the unknown if w...

SELL WITH SOUL

Not everyone wants to sell their work, but for those that do it’s a different kind of struggle, a more complicated one with a lot of mixed feelings. But you can do it well, in a way that sustains your work and brings value to the world, though you’ve probably got to re-calibrate some of your thinking to do so.

BEAUTIFUL WARRIORS

I never learned to fight, but I got picked on plenty in school. And then my mother put me in Judo and like a wimpier version of the Karate Kid, I learned to take a fall, and I learned to respect the fight and fear it less. This episode isn’t about Judo, and I’d still prefer to be a lover, not a fighter, but as the creative life contains more than its share of struggle, we should probably talk about it. I also get around to explaining the fish on the album art; trust me, it’s relevant.

THE PROBLEM WITH MUSES

In ancient greek mythology there were 9 muses, responsible for the worlds of literature, science and the arts. They were the sources of inspiration, minor goddesses who could be credited and praised for the best of our creative efforts, and I suppose, blamed when it all went to shit and nothing was flowing. The problem with muses is that they aren’t forces external to ourselves. They are neither our creative salvation nor the ones responsible for whatever version of writer’s block applies to you...

TAKE ME DEEPER

This episode is an exploration of some of the distractions that keep us from our best work and getting more easily into the flow, and the need for time, focus, and solitude to get more reliably to that flow.

JUST AN AMATEUR?

It’s common-practice to describe our art-making efforts as either amateur or professional, the amateurs often feeling they aren’t “real” artists when in fact some of the great creative efforts have been made by people who hung on to a so-called real-job and did their work in the margins, do it “merely” for the love of it. But there’s nothing mere about love and just because you do this part-time doesn’t mean it won’t take full-time commitment.

BE VERY YOU

This is an episode about the struggle to be (and become) fully ourselves. Defiantly so, even.

LEAVING DAFEN

This is a conversation about the insufficiency of craft and imitation in the creation of art that is authentic to who you are, and the need for courage above all things in this pursuit.

ABOUT PERFECTION

On the surface perfectionism sounds like one of those flaws you readily admit to because really it’s a modest way of saying, see, I’m not perfect after all, but really, I’m pretty close. Like you're admitting to being flawed like everyone else but that your particular vice is the relentless pursuit of having no vices. It’s like you’re saying, "no, really, I’m not the person you think I am. Sometimes I rescue too many kittens, or give too much money away.” Oh, me? I’m a perfectionist. Like you’re...

MAKE THE TIME

Without exceptions the most fruitful times in my creative life, and I include my business in this, because I am making my business just like I make photographs or write books, the most fruitful times are the ones in which I hustle and work hard. Sometimes it’s the work of generating ideas, or connecting to my audience, other times it’s getting the new website done, the new book written, or the new client project off the ground. If we all had nothing else to do and no other complications in our l...

OVERWHELMED

I don’t think we’re hard-wired to be able to deal with this much information, this many so-called friends, fans, and followers and likes and news clips from corners of the globe we are powerless to change. Our hearts and minds aren’t large enough to contain, much less filter, the many voices and images we take in. And if you’re a creative person, seeing the flood of other people’s work, their successes and awards, and being exposed to a volume of thoughts and chatter that no generation on the pl...

IMPOSTER SYNDROME

Imposter syndrome is a state in which we believe not only that we’re faking it, that we’re not real photographers or real artists , or whatever discipline you work within, but wannabes and fakes. And it’s the belief that no one else feels this way, especially the ones we look up to. We mistakenly believe that they have their shit together. That they are as confident on the inside as they look on the outside. Well, I’m here to tell you, they are as full of shit as we are. And not just full of it,...