Curation Isn't Creation

In this Age of Information, where anything and everything is available at the touch of a button, curators perform a central and vital function. Without them to cut through the clutter and deliver thoughtfully handpicked content, we'd be lost in avalanche of choices and options.

But while curation may be a creative endeavor, it's not creation. Creation demands risk, transparency, and vulnerability. It requires that you stare down the empty page, the blank canvas, and step bravely into the abyss.

If art is what you aspire to create, you must give the world more than just a collection of your favorite things. You must give yourself.

On Small Screens and Earning Trust

Most of us don't have the luxury of screening our work for a captive audience in a large dark theater. Increasingly, home theaters, desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones are the avenues through which our creations will be seen. Setting the obvious technical differences aside, these venues and devices have their own unique set of demands. None more important, perhaps, than cultivating an audience's trust.

Think about it. When you go and see a movie in a theater, you've already invested time, money, and energy just getting yourself into the seat. Then there's the whole darkened movie theater thing. It's a lot harder to walk out of a theater than it is to thumb the remote, flick your mouse, or turn off your cellphone.

So how do you earn trust? Get yourself right. Keep yourself in humble service to the story or the idea. Honor your audience by not wasting their time. I don't know about you, but the second I feel like my time and energy isn't respected, like I'm just a cheap pair of eyeballs, I'm out.

There are tens, hundreds of little decisions that go into creating a music video, a short film, an animated GIF. And each one of them is an opportunity to either alienate or captivate your audience. Yes, worry about the technical stuff - the lighting, the edit, the sound design. But never lose touch with the fact that you are asking for people to surrender their time and attention to watch what you've made. That's an honor, not a right.

Out of Excuses

The gatekeepers are gone.

The tools of the trade are more affordable than ever.

People are craving work that is original, handmade, and meaningful.

We have unprecedented access to one another.

What are you waiting for?

Get on with it

You don't want to be near me when I've been out of the studio for more than a week. I transform into an irritable, cranky wreck of a human being. I don't know why this is. And I've heard this is the case with other creative types.

Maybe it's a signal our subconscious sends our way, reminding us there's something that needs attention. And in order to right the ship, in order to find our equilibria, we need to face down whatever it is we're avoiding.

It seems that the world conspires against us, when it comes to doing our most important work. It throws an endless assortment of must-see-television, cheap calories, and other justifiably "important" distractions right at us.

But maybe the world isn't the problem.

It's so much easier to allow yourself to be distracted than it is to face the empty page or the half-finished project. Just get yourself into your studio (or workspace, or coffee shop... wherever it is you get your work done). Sign yourself out of your email, Twitter, Facebook accounts. And just sit.

See what happens.

Don't Rely on the Gloss

A couple years ago, my wife and I spent the better part of a weekend sanding, staining, and finishing a pair of cheap old Ikea bookshelves. For just a little extra sweat and effort, the immediate results were pretty darn impressive. A couple months of regular use, though, broke that spell real fast. In spite of the new finish, there was no covering up the fact that these were still some cheap old Ikea bookshelves.

It wasn't long ago that only a select few - those with lots of money, equipment, and technical know-how - could make motion pictures. Now, if you've got a decent camera, a computer, and some editing software, you, at home no less, can create pretty professional-looking work. But now more than ever, aspiring to slickness, to gloss for its own sake, won't cut it.

That doesn't excuse poor execution. But just remember, the most beautifully-produced work can't hide what's going on, or not going on, inside.