Pt 2. A Platform Isn't Just a Stage

An idea pops into your head, and before you've had a chance to let that baby marinate, you've got to "Smack it up, flip it, rub it down. Oh noooo..."

On no, indeed. And the call is as persistent as Bell Biv Devoe rapping too.

But what do I get from this? Aren't we co-creators in this pleasurable experience?

Somewhere along the way, some of us started confusing visibility with development, as though making something public is the same thing as making it grow. Once an artist plucks an idea from the source of their inspiration the pressure begins to fold it in its most acceptable packages: a post, a reel, a newsletter, or a video.

Nom nom nom, the audience eats. And yet they are still hungry.

Artists have always needed spaces where the work could be unfinished. Studios. Sketchbooks. Rehearsal rooms. Workshops. Trusted collaborators. Places where ideas could contradict one another, fail spectacularly, and slowly become something worth sharing.

Many of our digital platforms quietly erased that middle layer.

The path now often looks like create and then publish. If you're lucky, people like it. If you're unlucky, they don't. Either way, you're already moving on to the next thing because that's what the system rewards.

For independent artists, that pressure feels even stronger.

You're told to be "authentic" (let's talk about it...), but you're also told to perform that authenticity on demand. Make that make sense. So, you can disappear into the shadows until your work feels "good enough" or "perfect", knowing perfection doesn't exist anyway...

Or you can develop yourself in front of an audience that may mistake unfinished work for finished ideas.

Have you ever seen a hermit crab change shells? It's can be a terrifyingly vulnerable experience for all.

Lately I've been realizing that's one of the things I want to protect in my own practice. I don't want every observation to immediately become "content". I'm building a nest for my ideas to live before they become public. Somewhere they can connect to older thoughts, other memories, challenge one another, evolve, and occasionally surprise me.

That's one of the reasons I've been building my own DFOS space. And my own private DFOS space within my DFOS space.

It's forests all the way down.

I think artists deserve environments where they can become before they're expected to "perform" that becoming. I see it in artists that I quietly cheer on to this day because I can only imagine how it feels to have the noise of the world pressing on an eardrum that you need to listen to your own creative voice.

This layering changes my creative process from simply creating and publishing into something more intentional. First comes creation. Then curation. Then integration. Only after that comes publication. This is risky to those who find it challenging to see beyond immediate consumption but it becomes rewarding for those who enjoy the deeper connection it can offer.

By the time something I release reaches the public, that doesn't mean it's even finished. But its out there. It's reached a level of coherence that I can understand why it exists and where it belongs in my own ecosystem.

Maybe what artists have been missing all along is an ecology for becoming before they ever need a stage (word to Marvin Gaye).