New Projects

I have been having some pretty intense conversations with people I don’t really know that well. I am involved with two projects outside the studio. One is called, ‘Raise Your Game‘ put together by Creative Edinburgh, and the other is the ‘Distance‘ project, from Applied Arts Scotland. Both of these groups have been really enlightening for me so far.

The Raise your game has just concluded, but I think through our own steam, some of the participants will continue something, including myself, together. I said when I got involved with this, that Creative Edinburgh was a really broad church, and creative people were getting involved from all kinds of areas. What was really refreshing for me, is that I saw guards drop, including my own, and free fall conversations started. I felt very comfortable with the people I was involved with over the course, and I would highly recommend getting involved. What also happened, and maybe because not many people knew each other, is that there was a sense of equality. There were leaders of presentations, but no one person even attempted to showboat their expertise, or consider themselves above another.

What happened next was quite strange and exciting. A couple of the workshop attendees confided and revealed some personal problems or troubles that they were having. We started talking off script, and very off topic for the workshop. Big chats about living authentically, and mentioning that the revealing of personal stuff is actually empowering rather than a sign of weakness. It was all very cool, and I tried to take in and understand what was actually happening. Hence, this blog post. Some of the things I’ve taken away from these impromptu chats:

Key takeaways for me:

• The idea of living authentically. Trying to find out who you actually are, and what areas you have to work on to make yourself a better person. ‘Do what you wanna do’
• Getting to really know someone always wins. It is an opportunity to find out more about yourself. Whether you are in agreement, or have repulsion, at least you actually know. I have personally been in the firing line of people I didn’t really know, and them not knowing me… for good or bad as they say.
• As soon as the false guard we all put up vanishes, emotions are allowed to reveal themselves, and empathy for the unguarded becomes automatic.
• I’ve seen a lot of men recently lower their shields, even momentarily, and emotions start to bubble and foam over. I plead guilty.

Newsletters

Another thing I’ve been trying to get into is writing a newsletter. Now I realise that I make some different stuff, and not to everyone’s taste. I guess it’s mostly to let people into my practice, that aren’t seeing results through social media. My fondness for Instagram and Facebook has definitely waned over the lockdown period.

The reasons for it range from starting to ‘doomscroll’ endlessly because I had nothing else to do, and it becoming part of my daily. The other bit is because I realised I have less and less control over what I call the gravity of my posts. The weight of certain platforms, and posts not getting to the people I want them to. I guess it says more about my focus on where I want to push my practice, but I think getting people onto my own website gives me more control on what I think is important, and what is pretty or frivolous.

I don’t subscribe to many newsletters, and some of the ones I do are sent at really strange times. The professional ones I subscribe to have recently changed their deliveries from Friday after work. One that really resounds with me personally, is from the author of Steal like an Artist Austin Kleon, Thanks Lucy Engels. It is very succinct, and has a lot of content that is refreshing. You can catch past newsletters, and subscribe here.

I guess that’s plenty from me for the moment, but if you’d like to subscribe to my newsletter, You can navigate to the signup form at the top of my site, or press the button below.

Thanks for getting to the bottom of this post. See you next time.