August 15, 2023

Crunchy or Smooth

Some people prefer crunchy peanut butter, other people prefer smooth. It’s not that one is better than the other, they’re just different. And, no matter how compelling-a-case I could put together for why crunchy is better, I will never win over devotees of the smooth variety.

Same goes for art. While some types/styles of art may appeal to a bigger audience than others, there will always be a smaller audience for a type of art – some like crunchy, some like smooth.

So, when we’re judging ourselves and our work based on quantitative metrics like how many sales, how many followers, how many likes, and so on, we’re looking at the wrong metrics. If you’re trying to sell smooth peanut butter to crunchy fanatics (and no one is buying it), it easy to think your smooth recipe sucks rather than what’s really going on, you just haven’t found your people, yet.

Other observations
December 31, 2024

A conversation with a pencil

If a pencil could talk, what would it say to you? Nothing, I suspect, if you don’t use it.

December 24, 2024

I believe in you

Are there any set of words that one human can say to another that have a more profound effect than these?

December 17, 2024

A siren’s song

Social media is a siren’s song – of scale, of connection, of ‘monetisation’, of a valuable way to spend time. Might there be a better way?

December 10, 2024

Building muscles

No one expects me to run a marathon if I can’t even run 5km but when it comes to art, do we also need to build muscle?

December 3, 2024

It’s never felt more like work

Should picture book making feel like work? Or should it feel like some utopia where someone pays me for ‘art’?

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