Last week I had coffee downtown with a friend, and he mentioned the imminent closure of a local community college and bemoaned the lack of protest by students and faculty, pointing out that in, oh, say, some places in the world (other places, places that Are Not Here, in the US), something that impacted the lives of so many people would be a cause. You know: A Cause. People would protest, organize, try to do something to change things.
Here? Here, he said, we're too busy playing with our iPads. As long as our batteries don't run out and we have internet access so we can play Mafia Wars or Farmville or whatever inane thing is eating the brains of office workers everywhere, we're cool with the status quo.
I don't get it. No, I'm not politically active. I don't march. I don't protest any more. Oh, sure--I've protested. I got in the face of the Grand Whatever of the KKK when they rallied here back in the 80's, and I've got the photograph to prove it. (Somewhere--I've got it Somewhere.) I've spoken before the school board and written letters to the editor and argued with our district attorney, but these days I focus on what means the most to me, and that's all about creativity. My purpose in life is to encourage people to live creative lives. That's my job, and that's where my energy goes. Not earth-shattering, but vitally important. I really believe that. I applaud the people who are doing the other, big-picture work. And I do this.
So when my editors over at North Light Books offered me the opportunity to work with them on
CreateMixedMedia.com, giving me the chance to find new artists and spread the word about their work and inspire people and help them tap into their own creativity, well. I was there! Yeah, buddy. Because during the many years I've been involved in the Mixed Media Community, one thing I've heard over and over, everywhere we've gone and from so many of the people I've talked to, is a low-level grousing about what gets put Out There. People complain that it's the same art all the time, the same group of "in" images, the same handful of artists over and over and over. I understand what they're saying, and I think they have a point, even though I understand one of the main reasons for it: editors publish what they get, and if what they have is a lot of artwork that uses the same handful of symbols and images, what are they going to do? Alter it before they photograph it? And if the same artists are sending in good artwork every month, on the theme and on time, well-labeled, clean, ready to photograph? And they get other, fresher artwork, but it's not quite ready to be photographed, maybe a little glue-y or not quite finished? You get the idea.
Anyway. So I jumped at the opportunity to work on
CreateMixedMedia.com, thrilled to have a chance to help shape the community I love by bringing in more people and introducing visitors to things they haven't seen before, people they haven't met, new stuff and new tools and, and, and. It's a chance to do podcasts and interviews that will have a much wider audience than I'd have on my own. And I just assumed everyone else would be thrilled to be involved, as well. I assumed that the people who had been complaining at the Way Things Are would be more than happy to help me make things They Way They Can Be, help me find new artists, show fresh work, scout out cutting edge stuff that I can, in turn, pass on to readers and visitors and to my editors. New trends, new ideas, new techniques. New stuff. Cool stuff! Stuff any editor would love.
Because, people, let me tell you: the editors are not the issue here. I work with a bunch of them--the most-well-known editors in the business--and they're more eager than anyone to find and encourage new talent, share new ideas and techniques and materials. That's what they do. The problem? They also do a ton of other stuff--you wouldn't BELIEVE how busy these people are (for an example, check out
one day's mail at the offices of Stampington, mail that will have to be opened and catalogued and sorted and routed before it can even begin to be chosen for inclusion in a publication)--and they don't have 10 hours a day to scour the internet and go to retreats and workshops looking for as-yet-unknown artists and way-cool techniques. They wish they did--they'd all LOVE it if they could spend their days finding cool people doing cool stuff. Wouldn't we all?
Alas, that's not the way it works. They need input, and I love helping. I love finding someone new and introducing them to someone else and helping out everyone in the process. It's like crack to me--or what I imagine crack is like: it's an immediate high, and then you want to do it again. I naively assumed other people would, too. So I set about asking people to get involved: to do podcasts with me, to suggest their favorite unknown artists, to do Q&A blog posts about what they'd like to see Out There. If you're naive like I am, you'd think everyone would jump at the chance to have a positive impact and be given a chance to help make things more the way they want them to be. Fresh, new, inclusive. Right? Wouldn't you think that?
We would be wrong. Oh, sure--I've had a great response from lots and lots of people, and you'll be hearing from them. Absolutely. They're enthusiastic and generous about sharing and vitally interested in helping other people discover what their creative life can look like. I'm thrilled to be making contact with them, and their input is fabulous.
But it also turns out, sadly, that rather a lot of us like to complain about the way things are a lot more than we want to work to make them better. It reminds me of a scene in
The West Wing that I'd tell you about except I don't know what episode it was or the names of anyone involved except Josh. Or maybe he wasn't in it. Maybe it was some other guy. Josh's ex-girlfriend--at least I think she's an ex at this point in the story, although it's hard to tell, really, you know?--the really annoying girlfriend who always looks drugged, is offered a job at the White House, and she turns it down, and it's suggested by some other character I don't remember that this is because she finds it easier to carp about what's going on and to throw stones than it is to work from the inside making the incremental changes that will lead to progress.
I think throwing stones is easier, too. I'm a world-class complainer, and I could easily make an artform of it. I could devote my days to pointing out what's wrong with stuff. I could rant! I could use my Big Words! In my spare time, I could post to Regretsy and People Of Wal-Mart (and, no, I'm not providing links) and that site with the sad and pathetic cakes. Complaining is, let's face it, fun. You get to vent and blow off steam about things that irritate you and need to be changed, and you get to be clever and snarky. People cheer you on, and they support your kvetching with some of their own. It's popular, and people love it. I get more response to snarky tweets and posts than I do to just about anything else I do online. I could so easily go that way and become Famous, with advertisers and guest bloggers and wow! Who knows? Maybe I could make The Big Bucks being a complainer, pointing out everything that's wrong and demonstrating how clever I am to have noticed it and brought it to your attention! And then I could write a book about it, a book that would make lots of money and where someone else would pay me to come do signings in fabulous and exotic locations that do not involve La Quinta Inns.
But, really, what would be the point? Griping about stuff isn't going to change it. It's not going to make people smack themselves in the forehead and then go do exactly what you want them to do. Chances are they'd like a little change, too, but no one person can do it all by themselves. For change to occur in any area--huge, big, life-altering changes in governments or little bitty inspirational changes in online content--a bunch of people have to work together. That's the way it works.
For me, I'm loving the opportunities that are presenting themselves with CreateMixedMedia. Last week in our meeting we said, gee, wouldn't it be cool to see everyday studios? Because we've all heard the grousing about how all we're ever shown are decorated, pristine, perfect studios that don't look like anyone's ever done anything in them except drink tea out of really cute cups.
And within 30 minutes, there was a
Flickr group for photos of The Everyday Studio, and a week later there are almost 200 photos of non-frou-frou, often-messy, filled-with-inspiration working studios, with more being added every day. I love that! You can't imagine how cool that is to me--to have an idea for something that would be cool, that would make other people happy and give them ideas they can use in their own lives, and to have a chance to help make that happen in a much bigger way than what I could do on my own.
I'm guessing some of y'all are frowning about the comparison between the often-tragic, life-altering events in world governments and the comparatively very, very minor issues in the world of mixed media, but the larger point is that we are a society not of doers, but of gripers. We'd rather complain than do something. Ridicule someone else's efforts. We'd rather make fun of the way people dress when they go to the discount store than develop a person style of our own. We'd rather go to a website and snicker at the snide comments posted about less-than-lovely pieces of artwork than we would create our own Etsy shop and fill it with stuff we've made. Decorating a cake is a ton of work; making fun of someone else's failed efforts is not only easy, it's fun! Ridiculing, griping, complaining--it feels like you're doing something but without any real effort.
It would be interesting to find out what happens to the protesters in the Middle East, the ones who heartily took to the streets and courageously helped bring about change. Once the rock-throwing is over, if they're offered a role in the process, are they going to roll up their sleeves and get busy helping make things more the way they want them to be? Or are they going to go home and wait until they have another chance to yell and hurl rocks?
Protest? Yes, protest is important. It's what gets people's attention. But once you've got that, do you just keep tossing rocks at their heads? Do you go home and wait for something else to complain about? Or do you roll up your sleeves and get involved?
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