Me, Work And Instagram

I only wanted to post a lot of whatevers when I initially joined IG,  kept on private mode with no friends because I simply wanted to see my photos with all the filters.  It was all about the things happening in the kitchen and my travel pics. Then I got on the calligraphy bandwagon and started posting everything about that and switched my account to “public”.  I lost steam quickly and realised the discipline was not for me and faltered away.  Though I abandoned the handwriting craft, it left me with around 700 followers and I was absolutely elated.

Soon after, the tides changed and I was off to a new direction as I rebranded myself. Not so much that I decided to do a drastic thing but I decided to return once again to my own art: painting and illustrating — a career I stored away in my heart and remained hidden for 5 years during a long spell of creative block.  Within a year, I started developing my work from a clean slate. 5 years of creative block meant 5 years of empty sketchbooks and blank canvasses.  It was a struggle just to get my imagination course through my veins down to my hands.

As of this writing, my own community on Instagram has grown to 26k. It’s something that takes me by surprise every single day.

It’s nice to know there are people out there listening everyday to whatever I have to say, and for that I am very, VERY grateful.

So today, I look back at 2016 and try to peel back the layers and review the core of what I do as a working artist, how this helped build my work and relationships on social media and beyond.

Don’t play the numbers game.  

Your are not made of digits so this should not be the end-all and be-all.  Expecting people to “like” you back because you “liked” them is kinda like thinking everyone you meet will instantly be your friend, in my opinion. It’s just not realistic.

Please DON’T buy likes and followers! Such a travesty to build a name on a blatant lie.

Social media still boils down to genuine relationships. While the bulk of people who follow you might be people you probably won’t have the chance of meeting in the flesh, treat every single one of them with the same level of respect you would accord people you meet in person.  

Good manners say a lot. 

I’ve come across a great deal of people on IG who will follow you, like a gazillion posts in one day, then immediately unfollow you as soon as you follow back.  I feel people are brave enough to do so because there is no in-person transaction, so there’s no tangible accountability or “face” to lose doing something so immature and rude.  Then again, to many, it’s still about what was said in #1, at all costs.  

Work on your work before working on your post.  

What are your reasons for being on IG in the first place?

If you’re staging photos only for the sake of Instagram fame and crafting an image with too much effort for the sake of the number of “likes” and “follows”, then you are paving a very wide road for frustration filled with nothing but smoke and mirrors.   It’s difficult to share something relevant if there really is no work going on.

Focusing on our craft brings so much more real value that sharing stuff on social media is but an echo of our real life.

 On the flip side,  many highly successful establishments and people with inspiring and lucrative careers have relatively small social media followings because, really, they’re too busy taking the entire world by storm in real life 🙂

Be sincere.  

I am not going to wax poetic and attach profound quotes on a photo that has nothing to do with the text. Neither will I post a heavily edited beach shot I’ve never been to (or a photo that I didn’t take in the first place) and say that I’m dreaming about being there.

I think it’s just awkward.  What you see on my IG account, is pretty much what you will get from me in real life: my splattered workspace, the cluttered desk, my dog Jones, my sparse home, my candid comments.

My days are far from perfect so you can expect my posts to be just all about that.

Share as needed. 

My IG account is primarily all about art.  And yes, of course it’s self-promotion! 🙂

Okay, okay. So sometimes I post what’s happening in the kitchen.

But really, I’ve gone on silent/lurker mode on Facebook since the beginning of the year, for the most part.   If I have something to say, I just bug someone on chat and have a real conversation.  

Besides, there was a time when people didn’t share inane stuff ever so publicly at such lightning speeds.

I kind of want to go back to a more analogue life, if I could.