Celebrating a Creative Conjunction
A few months ago, I had the privilege of directing my very first music video for awesome Sydney based band Salonistas. The story of how the song ‘Take Me Home’ came into being and the video clamoured its way out of creative grey matter and into the tangible world, is very closely related to another project in the making, one of my weirder ones to date (and that’s saying something!)
People call these things a ‘Labor of Love’. I’d say they’re more like the ‘Persistence of Delirium’. Fortunately, there are many other wonderful creatives who suffer from the same condition, and every once in a while we manage to get together to shape delirium into reality. I can’t wait to do it again!
Celebrate what we’ve created with us at the official launch celebration for ‘Take Me Home’ on May 15th and share a toast with all the crazy creatives behind this conjunction of music and mayhem!
Details and tickets from the link below!
Time and Irony
I’ve been thinking about time. The inevitability of it. The invisibility of it. How much of it passes during which we feel as if we are in a state of In-between one thing and another, when in fact we are simply forgetting to acknowledge that every given moment is, in and of itself, a state of completion. This microfilm is part of a larger project I’ve been working on about these liminal states in which time passes by. I have yet to complete the full film as time has gotten away from me. Ironic isn’t it?
The Loney Art of Self Promotion
People have wondered, asked, and occasionally assumed that the stress, trepidation, and seeping ooze of anxiety I experience when putting my work out into the world has to do with the scrutiny that follows. “Are you worried about what people will think?”
Unusual as it may seem, I'm not. I know that when someone reads, watches, listens, or engages with something I've created, opinions will naturally form and surface, whether I like them or not. I put my work forth knowing that I have thrown absolutely everything that I had at the time into its creation. Whether or not someone enjoys what I created, is completely subjective and entirely out of my hands.
So, what does put knots in my neck, wake me up in the middle of the night, produce ludicrous narratives in my head and tremors in the pit of stomach? Trying to get people to even pay attention to my work to begin with a.k.a. self-promotion.
Artwork in background “Dread” by Dan De Nardis
Self-promotion is being the kid who brought a magic rock to show and tell, the kid who knows for certain that the rock is magic but that the magic only works when you're alone with it and trying to convince a room full of your snickering peers that they would see it too if they just tried.
Self-promotion is sending out the pretty invitations to your party, then spending every day in its lead-up haunted by visions of being by yourself in your fiercest outfit, listening to your own playlist while eating your own artfully arranged crudité platter.
Self-promotion is entering an overcrowded room where everyone is already in the midst of loud conversation, if not full-on arguments, and stepping up onto a pedestal, not because you want to but because you were told that was the thing to do. It's trying to draw everyone's eyeballs toward that pedestal, while ignoring all the whispers of “What makes her think she's special enough to be on that pedestal?” You want to shout that it wasn't your idea, that it's not about you, but the same voices that told you to get up on that pedestal also said never talk yourself down, never sell yourself short. They told you that letting even a hint of self-doubt slip into your sales spiel was a slippery slope to abject failure. We are what we manifest, right?
Chances are, when you see anyone you know up on that pedestal shouting out “Look I made a thing!” they're feeling the same way. They're experiencing the rising nausea, fighting through the fumbles in speech and sudden pauses in thought. They're so worried about that last thing they just said that they have no idea what they're saying now. Is there spinach in my teeth? Wait, when was the last time I even ate spinach?
They need your help.
Attend their gallery openings. See their plays. Read their books. Go to their gigs. Get tickets to their films. Buy their unique creations.
Maybe, like many people I know, you're thinking “I want to, but I don't have the time or the money for all that.” Then use the systems that bring art so readily into your life, to elevate the artists that are so often left behind by them. It takes fifty reviews before Amazon will start recommending a book to likely readers. It takes one thousand streams on Spotify before a musician can start to earn the fractions of a cent they get per play. Every streaming service you have doesn't just recommend what you might like, it recommends the already most watched and highest rated of what you might like.
Write the reviews. Play the songs. Dig three or four layers deep into your steaming menus. I guarantee you there are diamonds in that rough. Hit like. Write a comment even if it's just to increase their number. Tell everyone you know who might like what you've discovered that it exists.
To the person on that pedestal, it all feels like getting a “Good Job” sticker from your favourite teacher. It helps them to forget their nerves and remember why they were so excited to create the thing in the first place. It brings the fun back into show and tell. It fills that party with joy and laughter. It makes that pedestal a lot less lonely.
Artwork in background “Dread” by Dan De Nardis