Not everything has to have a paywall

Recently in Night Class- a long form 6 month class/cohort that I run for artists with a focus on practice- we discussed money and practice. This is a deeply difficult and fraught conversation- one I have shared many thoughts on in past substack posts. One thing I have been thinking about a lot lately is the purpose behind creating and how when that purpose is soley focused on external validation- money, likes and shares- it hinders what we are making.

This creates a really tough line to suss out as a creative and so I thought I would unpack some of the things I am thinking about with this. This is for you, it’s also for me, which means I am thinking through and sharing a lot of my thoughts on this and I reserve the right to have different thoughts than yours and to change my mind. My money and creative process does not equal yours.

When I first started using social media it didn’t have anything to do with my creative practice in a direct way. I thought of it as an extension of my lived experience. I was painting and drawing a lot, in and out of art school, working for an arts non profit and it just made sense that those things would be a lot of what I shared. I actually didn’t really think of social media as a way for me to monetize art until probably 2018 or 2019. So I mainly documented progress on paintings, shared things I was working on, ideas I had and it was really a public journal of sorts. I liked that I got to share with other creative people, and I wasn’t necessarily sharing for feedback or for other people’s opinions, but more for myself and connecting the things I was making to others.

I have met several friends on social media over the years, a friend I found back in the days of tumblr who I traded art with and eventually once we both became art professors, we did collaborative projects with our classes. I met other painters, illustrators, illustrators who love reality tv, illustrators who love sports, writers who love to draw- just so many people who would motivate me to make work I am excited about. Lots of these people are people I have met up with in person, who I talk to regularly and who made these spaces a lot of fun.

When I started noticing a shift was when my numbers of viewers, likes and followers started increasing- and more so because of how other people told me that it was important. The pressure that I put on myself for each thing I shared to then have meaning, a purpose or to lead to something slowly widdled away at the fun of sharing. I was more focused on a good edit of the video of the thing I was making, than the actual thing I was making and it wasn’t fun to make just for me. It felt like work, it felt hard and uninteresting- I wasn’t interested and I most definitely wasn’t playing in these spaces. I was treating them like formal portfolios and the way I was engaging in them was becoming cold and calculated.

Last year I started doing live streams on here where I just paint and chat and I was reminded of what I love about social media- and it gave me a tiny feeling in my gut that felt familiar. These livestreams got a good amount of engagement and my initial thought was- I should put these behind a paywall. I immediately let that thought go- because what felt good was the low stakes, low pressure playfulness of sharing in this way. I like that people can just drop in and honestly I don’t know how sustainable paying for access to individual creators is. I can’t afford subscriptions to each person I am interested in hearing from. I want to be able to do that, but it isn’t reasonable and I find myself having to cancel subscriptions in order to stick to my budget.

I don’t know what the solution is- because I do want to pay the creators I love but I also don’t think the current substack system is sustainable. I also really don’t like the way myself and other creators immediately consider these spaces as “get rich quick” ideas to support our creative practices. There is something there that I have always felt a little icky about- it might be my personal wariness of pyramid schemes, but there is something there that feels like it doesn’t ring true to how I want my practice to feel- so I have had to sit with that a little.

I decided that I want everyone to be able to watch, read and engage with my art and musings. I don’t want money to be a reason you don’t and I also don’t want money to be a reason I feel pressure to show up in a certain way. I want to keep this space fun for me and you. So I shifted it to free for eve

ryone and if you want to subscribe for money, it will help me sustain this practice and continue to keep it free. I like that model, it feels equitable and sustainable for me from a creative standpoint and it does what I always want to do when it comes to art and money, it sets the art above the money and ensures access.

To me the engagement with others, discussion, sharing and furthering creative thought is much more important than a paywall. I understand that for others that might not be true. To each their own, I just wanted to take time to chat out where I am coming from, how I see this space and be honest about the sustainability of paywalled works.

Friday Night was the Giants Pride celebration (one of many, they do several) and we can get into the weeds of commercial celebrations of Pride and the authenticity behind them, but I will just say that almost all MLB parks do cultural heritage nights, bring in leaders from different communities, highlight the diversity and beauty of the city that they are in- San Francisco is especially good at this and the fans love it. I love it! So while it’s of course a money grab and baseball is a business, its also important and special and makes everyone proud to be here, and Pride Night is no different. A bunch of the giants pitchers- 4 to be exact- including Landon Roupp and Ryan Walker- wore a Genesis verse on their caps protesting pride. If your protest is about exclusion and forcing your religious beliefs on others- its actually just called hate and a cult and it doesn’t belong anywhere and it definitely doesn’t belong in San Francisco. Sports are a microchasm of society and are a fun way to examine what is happening on a larger scale- and criticism and activism totally belong there. Ownership of the franchises is often a bunch of right wing rich dudes, the giants are no exception. The number of people who stopped me to talk about the sign was encouraging. Anyway, no real lesson there, just a reminder that we can love complex and frustrating things and we should criticize and engage with the hard parts as well as love the beautiful parts.

I dont know why that feels grammatically incorrect (things I am loving?) but I am sticking with it. Just want to share some stuff!

• Reading Grady Hendricks Witchcraft for Wayward Girls- he writes in the forward that the idea for this book came to him when his aunt revealed that she was sent to a home to ride out her pregnancy and then gave the baby up for adoption- and just how intense and secretive that whole traumatizing process was for her. It is really good, funny and scary and a romp. The characters are really well written and this is my first Grady Hendricks- I think he’s polarizing in the horror world but so far, I am a fan.

• Watching The Boroughs on Netflix- no spoilers! I am only an episode in, I haven’t watched narrative tv since my dad passed but this seemed fun and strange and it is and I am liking it. Dave and I are slowly watching it together.

• Sheet pan dinner- this is odd but I struggle to cook these days and I started doing a big sheet pan with veggies from the farmers market and garbanzo beans- and recently I am doing chicken breast (sear on the stovetop first and then put in the oven) and it feeds me for several days and is so fast. So if you are like me- highly recommend. You don’t need a recipe you can just set the oven to 375 and after I sear the chicken I put it all in together and it takes about 15-20 minutes for the chicken to reach 165-170 degrees. Thats it.

• Commonplace sketchbook/journal- you can learn more here- I think its important to remember you can make these whatever you like! I don’t have time to make beautiful sketches in mine, so I just use a chunky pen and keep it simple and playful

Night Class for Summer/Fall is happening starting next month! This is a 6 month long class on practice! It is so much fun, its about sustaining your practice, about committing to showing up for your work as you move through life. You meet and make friends with other people doing the same. You can learn more and sign up here.

Ok thats it!

Thanks for being here, stay weird and see you soon!

Warmly,

Lindsay