My big announcement

So I’m having some big feelings this week. Some sad feelings. This is why I’m gonna give up my art biz dreams for now.

I had been feeling demotivated to work on my art biz, even though it was tooling along, with a shopify site and printify connections ready to go. Why?

I would love to keep growing and expanding into a whole new world of surface design business, but seeing how it’s tied to exploitative and extractive industries that are deeply tied to capitalism makes it a no for me.

In the surface design biz, you follow trends. You make design briefs to put your art in living rooms, in nurseries.

You get your art put onto wallpaper, washi tape, shower curtains, journals, t-shirts, mugs, teatowels, pillows etc.

All of this stuff, people don’t need more of. They really don’t! It’s so wasteful to keep trying to get the latest thing, and get it because you’re trying to fill some emotional hole inside of yourself that can never be filled with stuff.

Trust me, growing up in the house I grew up in, that was EXACTLY what people tried to do. Buy bigger, buy more, be more extravagant, all to fill up that emotional hole that could never be filled. It was sad to watch. And it’s still sad, because people have not learned. The overspending put them in the hole for half a million dollars.

This is the big lie of consumerism.

Just buy stuff and it will make you feel better.

But the dopamine hit you get of putting something in your cart goes away when it shows up at your door, and you have to figure out how to fit this in with your other stuff, or pay off the debt that comes with buying too much stuff.

I felt deeply ambivalent about taking part in a supply chain that is exploiting people.

You get print on demand stuff, but where does it come from? A sweatshop in a faraway country that you never have to see, or ask how did this get made?

I made a sweatshirt in high school, and it took me a long time to sit at the sewing machine, cut the fabric, and sew it. If a t-shirt is $1.99 to make, it seems like it would be made in a sweatshop right?

Is that really ethical?

Do you really have ethics if you don’t ask how the things are made that you are selling?

Then i asked myself, could I really, in good conscience, sell something that had dubious ethics attached to it?

And ultimately, the answer was, no, no I couldn’t.

I also didn’t feel super good about selling art.

I just like making it, you know? Not selling. Maybe you can relate. I can sell a lot of things, and sell them well. But selling the art… felt kinda gross. I guess that’s what I want to say. is that I didn’t feel like it aligned with who I am.

So I closed it all down. The wholesale account, the shopify, everything. I just had to step back, and regroup.

 

What do I like?

I like making art. I have my own consumerist impulses, and I know I am hostage to them. But when i make art, I feel less like I need to buy stuff, it soothes me in a way that buying stuff does not. Making art… brings me peace. And then I just keep doing it. I get into a groove. I notice how the art gets better and better.

I like giving the art away.

I like putting it in my slides, on stickers, in my books.

I am probably gonna make a t-shirt with my art on it as I go to the Netherlands in October.

I like donating to mutual aid in countries that are hurting right now. Places like Palestine and Sudan. I acknowledge the people who are suffering right now and I use some of the money I am making to ease their suffering.

 

Maybe it’s not either/or

Still, like most people, I do have to work, and I do have to make money, to live under capitalism right now.

As my therapist says, maybe it’s not either-or.

So I’ve decided to keep doing the teaching, government contracting thing, and incorporate art into it. Have my students make art. Have art incorporated into the teaching materials. Have people do more creative things in the class.

Because when we’re feeling creative, we’re feeling safe. Or safer! We’re saying fuck it, let’s play! And that’s honestly how I want people to feel. Just feel more free. More free to be who they are, and do what they want to do!

Maybe I will sell my art someday, in some way, but it’s going to have to look different. If I’m making it, then I’m making it and I can tell people exactly who labored to make it, how it was made and how they can feel good paying for it.

If you see me and I look sad, just know that this is why. I had hope that I could put my life on a completely different path, and try something new, and reinvent myself again, and it seems like… I can’t do that.

Then again, at least I only got four months down the road, and realized this, instead of two years in, and putting much more effort into it, and money, and time. So, that’s something, I guess.

 

How do we even justify making art at a time like this?

What is the place for art in a dystopic future?

What is the place for art in a dystopic future?

Well, did you know that art rewires trauma in your brain?

How?

1. When you go through trauma, the nervous system gets overwhelmed.
2. The brain shifts into survival mode, flooding the body with stress hormones and rewiring how we think, feel, and react.
3. This can show up as anxiety, hypervigilance, withdrawal, anger, or feeling “stuck” in old patterns long after the danger is gone.

Trauma often weakens the brain’s ability to regulate emotions and strengthens the pathways connected to fear and stress. Over time, these stress-based pathways can feel like the only routes the brain knows how to take.

However, art – whether it’s doodling, dancing, music, (or anything remotely creative) activates areas of the brain associated with pleasure and problem-solving. We get to make choices, and choice helps lift us out of trauma.

When we create, the brain releases dopamine, the “feel-good” chemical that supports healing and rewiring. Creative activities encourage the brain to build new, healthier pathways that can replace old, trauma-based patterns.

I am thinking of making more art gatherings.

Why? I like doing gatherings. And I like teaching and making art. So I am thinking of making more art gatherings.

Is this something you would like to attend? An art making that helps you feel better when the world feels overwhelming?

Let me know in the comments.