Leaving Instagram gave me the Creative Zoomies

I want you to experience them too

Photo of me taken by my partner after hiking 12 miles in a weekend, blissed out in a feild of invasive european mustard flowers.

Over the last two months I have written, rewritten, filmed, edited, scrapped, and completely rewrote a new video essay about leaving Meta. It felt cathartic to finally release it out into the world on Sunday. My favorite part of the video titled Everyone is finally leaving Meta is this section near the end:

”I have been steeped in the kool-aid of Meta’s Internet for a long time. After growing up working class and then going to art school, the hot dumpster fire combo of high art language and elitist art world expectations were choking my creativity. Yet I always saw Facebook and Instagram as an essential and clear alternative space.

I didn’t realize though, that these spaces have always been clouding my judgement and making me conform to the platform expectations. Setting myself free made me feel like an unleashed dog in a giant field of grass. I have the creative zoomies now.

I want you to experience the magic of the creative zoomies too.”

The essay follows that line up with tips for trying to be creative for folks that can “only draw a stick figure” aknowledging that being creative sounds like the most intimidating and shame-inducing thing for most people.

You can watch the whole thing here:

Share the video with a friend if it resonates. I also made a resource on my website with the biggest highlights and tips from the script to help someone leave Meta for you to share with your family and friends.

I was on a Podcast!

In other news, Artist Sean Dietrich had me on his new podcast, Drink Tickets, to talk about my art schools video, the state of creative education, and my teaching practice that you can listen to on Apple or on Spotify. Feel free to respond to this email and share your thoughts on it.

Painting Demo I need to Share:

My beginning watercolor students have been sharing their struggles with clouds, so decided to film myself working on this piece inspired by my recent trip to Sierra City, CA to see the snow. I am thrilled with how it turned out and can’t wait to show them the process this afternoon on acheiving foggy magic.

Watercolor painting of The Buttes in Sierra City seen poking through the fog on a snowy Sunday morning.

Might make a few adjustments and tweaks to the top of the Buttes and glaze some more subltetly into the foreground tree branches. I think the next step will be to work on this again in oils soon. If you are interested in this piece, just reply to this email.

Reminder: Go Bag Zines are available on my website

I still have several physical Zines and PDF copies that you can pickup. As a reminder, more than half of the total cost on both editions are going to LA Fire mutual aid.

Learn more in the post I wrote last week:

A gentle warning to my fellow hikers:

This morning I was reading a new book The Philosophy of Walking by Frédéric Gros and it is excellent. This quote totally aligns with so much I have been sharing about slowing down lately:

“Walking is the best way to go more slowly than any other method that has ever been found. To walk, you need to start with two legs. The rest is optional. If you want to go faster, then don’t walk, do something else: drive, slide or fly. Don’t walk. And when you are walking, there is only one sort of performance that counts: the brilliance of the sky, the splendour of the landscape. Walking is not a sport.”

That last bit, a reminder that walking is not a sport felt like the author dragging me from the other side of my e-reader. I was reading this morning rather than walking because I deeply overdid it last weekend. I am currently nursing an injury that makes it painful to walk.

When your body says stop on a hike, walk, or other exercise, listen. I didn’t and now I am in bad shape. I will recover and get back to walking (gently) soon, but please take care of yourselves. Right now it is too easy to push past warning signals because we all want to feel good in nature in these disturbing times. Please do not overdo it like I did! Rest when you need to and take it easy. Walking is not a sport.

Monthly creative prompts will be out next week around the concept of Recovery. It is taking me longer than normal to write them but they will coincide with a big virtual group retreat announcement so be on the lookout for that!

Until next time, stay creative and find your own ways to rest and persistently bloom.