Art of Uncertainty: Artists and Instagram

Instagram for Artists

What’s missing from the canon of writing about Instagram for artists?

As far as I can tell, it solely focuses on what is known – tangibles, times, content

There is a gap of appreciation for the art of unknowing – getting more comfortable acting without knowing a damn thing for certain

As we discuss the Art of Instagram, I can feel both our adoration for the platform and the undercurrent of frustration

Try Everything and Never Decide

My advice is: try everything and never decide

Didi Von Boch calls Instagram her playground and that is an aspirational attitude

Kids on a playground rove around, try different things, take risks, form loose coalitions and express themselves

The quiet ones make perfect sand castles in their calculated way; the loud ones gather the troops and influence them

The Blue Period

The art of unknowing requires the spirit of playing dress-up

In dress-up we experiment with ways of being and behaving and presenting, not as a “now I know who I am” destination that but as an outfit or an era that is put on and can be taken off

I love the idea of eras, and they are always a reality for the artist; Picasso’s “blue period” etc.

Allow yourself outfits, eras, periods; experimentation with how to use it and what feels right; what makes money; what makes you laugh; what works

Mine has always felt right as a journal – I think it would be more booming if I narrowed it down to a gallery-only, but I love to show the world what I’m up to, share in the joy of the things my hands touch

No Certain Knowledge

Instagram is like a garden; we tend to the plant that withers, we do routine maintenance, we spend way too much time on an exotic, high-maintenance aspect that yields little for the world but we love it, we do the drudgery aspect because we have to

Instagram as playground and garden, as dress up and era – this is staying loose on Instagram, flexing, changing, and hearing all voices but listening to none

Tend to yours in the way that feels right – no certain knowledge, decided aesthetic, or permanent strategy required