Charm FX

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Recently, I’ve been having some discussions with mentors, and am realizing the Arts & creative expression, generally, is undergoing a radical paradigm shift. What do I mean by that?

One of my core personal beliefs is that the major cause for negative conditions in the world is based in failures of imagination, insufficient creativity and yielding to fear. Anything we can do to promote and facilitate more developed creative expression and innovation in all directions reveals new and greater potentials in every situation. It is only when fears and anticipating “lack” take over that human beings put all their significant energies into conserving what they have, and staying where they’re at instead of developing what can be created and developed.

The internet and the rise of social community sites and services is making individual access to a massive ability to promote our own work the norm. This may seem obvious, but I’m not sure it REALLY is obvious to many. Quite a few are simply going about business as usual without fully grasping just how to fully utilize these new tools. Many who are established in some creative field continue to do things the way they’ve always done. Reliance on gallery owners, show promoters, publicists/PR people, agents and managers as the primary mechanism for gaining and cultivating a following for your work is avoiding what the climate should be showing you.

Many have many reasons for avoiding these new tools, but often it just comes down to an unwillingness to step into something unknown. There’s a big problem with this and it’s called time.

Why is time the problem? What many just aren’t seeing is internet content, including social content and mainly video is heading straight for the one major appliance in everyone’s living room…the television. That puts ‘creatives’ and creative content dead smack in the middle of the living rooms of the world in a ‘one on one’ way. No agent, gallery owner or other middle man or gatekeeper is going to be between you and access to the world. Even the computer illiterate will be able to manage content coming through their TV.

The rapid acquisition curve of net enabled televisions is beginning to even dwarf the original acquisition curve of original televisions that took place in less than 10 years in the forties when television first began replacing radios in the home as the main broadcast receiver. The influx of color television was quicker than the original and my feeling is net enabled TV will dwarf that in how fast it becomes the norm.

What’s already clear is that the internet is a huge, vast “maw” with an appetite for information and content the world has never experienced before. As the mechanisms for delivering, discussing and providing feedback on that content continue to be refined, the audience and appetite for that content grows even faster.

Creative individuals expressing themselves in a manner that they’ve refined and worked on are, for the first time in history, at the top of the information stream. …but only if they take the time to learn to effectively use these tools.

What’s my evidence and why should you care? Browse around twitter and facebook for established fine artists, celebrities, writers, musicians who have name recognition from careers in the past 20-30 years. Look for names you know, who pop up now and then. A few are showing real interest in, and proficiency with cultivating their followings and using the social tools. The majority continue to rely on agents or publicists/PR firms to get themselves noticed and their work valued. Some with large followings are primarily broadcasting to their fans and not really engaging. These folks are accepting the position of continuing to prove, whatever their new projects are, why they are valuable enough to have the opportunity to express themselves to gatekeepers and management types. Some of these folks are top tier artists and they just can’t seem to grasp the importance of directly engaging with their community. When you can demonstrate a large following directly, you have a lot more leverage when it comes to getting traditional mechanisms to take notice. These mechanisms are in trouble and when an individual can move the needle on their own, that’s a big deal.

What is the “Climate of Creativity” and how does it impact you? Net content will soon be in every living room with a television. Every artist will be able to find and engage with anyone with any interest in their specific interest, story …their art. Sticking with using a 20th century mindset when it comes to getting your work noticed only means you keep yourself in a box of someone else’s making and minimizing your opportunities for more freedom or ability to pursue new creative opportunities.

Please add your thoughts in the comments below. I’m really interested in how you think this is going to evolve.

Why is there a cliche that creative people are tortured or unstable, or that they must suffer to do what they do?

There are a few words that describe a way of thinking about creativity that are particularly pernicious and debilitating.

Two of these words are “genius” & “talent”.

In some ways the perpetuation of the negative impact of these words is provided by many creative people and institutions. The words are useful as marketing tools, making the artist a rarity. While things and people with something to say, and advanced ability are not always plentiful it’s not enough of a reason to pay attention to someone. Plenty of really smart people never did anything. Plenty of highly skilled people squandered every opportunity they came upon. Using those two words to market someone or their work is a ploy that plays on the insecurities of others.

The impact of the use of these words in creative circles that is most destructive is how much it impedes those who are growing into seeing themselves as a creative individual. This perception of some as talented or geniuses and not problem solvers and working on things each and every day makes it difficult for students and novices to make an attempt. Once you achieve some level of success you’re still in this position of constantly comparing yourself and your work to some unattainable standard of greatness.

This kind of “frame” around approaching anything creatively can be and is sometimes debilitating, hence the cliche of the tortured artist always striving for something out of reach.

The thing is, any of the seriously successful and many of those we think of as examples of creativity didn’t spend time even considering their own “genius” or “talent”. Rather, they were looking at the market, the climate of their times, or their own passion for ideas.

If you spend all your time trying to convince others how good you are or trying to be something others expect of you, you’ve already lost.

Create what you’re passionate about. It’s all you can do. It’s the most you can do and it’s enough.

Please add your own insights. thanks.