senior year of independence

shows in the fall, beta testers, partnerships, and starting a team

the redwoods of Muir Woods

In 4 months I will have spent 4 years as a creative independent, which feels like a good time to really re-evaluate and see how things are going.

As a result, I’ve started thinking of this year as my “senior year.” I feel confident and familiar with many things even as it feels like there’s so much more I’ve yet to learn. There’s a feeling of racing against the clock - trying to get everything done before the big marker.

What will I have to show for myself at the end of my time here?

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Even if, logically, I can point to all my various achievements, the things that I never thought I could do. And, emotionally, I can clearly recall the heartwarming emails, messages, and notes I’ve gotten from so many supporters. Still, I feel restless. I worry about it being enough.It might be that it’s not sufficient to just be good as a creative independent. You must be great to make it.¹

I’ve been feeling cognitive dissonance. From the outside, it looks like this year is going great. My friends tell me that it seems like I’m blowing up, that everything is falling into place. Internally, I somehow feel more doubt than ever.

Perhaps it’s the expectations of it all. I have the appearance of doing great, so I really have to live up to it in everything I do. There’s no room for error, and at night, in the dark, the voices of comparison start to chatter.

Where’s your Wikipedia page, your profile in the New York Times? Where’s the millions of views and the funding for a team and the solo shows? What if you get cancelled? What if your projects flop? What if you don’t deserve it?

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I’m a Type 3 Enneagram, nicknamed The Achiever, which means I’m naturally driven by success and feeling valuable and worthy. So the personal struggle that has sat with me below all my everyday problems has been the fear of obscurity.

To do anything as crazy as working on your own art and committing yourself to it, you have to sell yourself a myth. Delusion is the fuel for dreams. But when does this necessary poison become too much for your body to bear?

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Every year throughout this journey has been about doing more. Each year I’m reaching new milestones, growing a bigger audience, stretching myself in new ways that I hadn’t thought I could before.

This year has been no different. I’m making my first public art installation. I’m putting up exhibitions in 4 countries. I’m changing our internet to be more alive and human-first. I’m doing brand collaborations, speaking at conferences, teaching, hiring an assistant to help me out.

I’m also more overwhelmed than ever. My decision-making feels worn out, and I try to refresh it by escaping. I find myself sucked into my phone more, checking the numbers, constantly measuring myself against some moving goal.

Somewhere along the way, I lost track of the fact that it’s all for nothing if it’s not fun. Sometime while making more playful, alive spaces and toys for others, I forgot that it should feel the same when I’m doing it for myself.

Of course, its easier said than done. Reality checks in regularly about being able to make a living, plan for supporting a family, feeling responsible to my community, audience, and dreams.

But the balancing act only works if my spirit is fully in it.

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from my reflection / intention starting this year

I’m remembering to return to my roots. To create with abandon, play without a care in the world, surrender to expansiveness.

I’m reminding myself to loosen my grip, move slowly but purposefully, stare deeply into my fears and obstacles until they reveal themselves.

I’m gently urging myself to be honest with my vulnerabilities, struggles, shames. It’s not an easy path—I should not pretend it is.

I’m imagining the moments that made me care so much in what I do. The kind (and occasionally cruel) strangers in childhood video games, small websites bursting with the personality of their makers, the feeling of seeing something I made come to life as other people used it.

A month ago in an old barn in Maine, I encountered a middle-aged dancer who told me they were very cynical about technology, but my words sparked a tiny flame that reminded them there was a time when they were hopeful for it.

This is who I’m doing it for. And the best way to reach them, is to do it my way. Having fun, seeing what’s possible, always dreaming about what could be.

Thank you to many friends and confidants who have listened and shared their advice with me on these feelings lately! S, Maja, Matt, Olivia, Halim, Alice, Ameesh, & many more.

Updates & Asks

1. I’m looking for beta testers for we were online. Sign up here
   I wrote last week about making the internet a big video game, and I have lots of things in mind that I’m trying to test with a larger group to figure out what feels right and actually facilitates meaningful encounters.
   
   I need your help! Please share with any friends who love browsing and wish it could feel more communal.

2. I’m showing lots of work in the fall!
   In Melbourne at Radical Computing at NCM, Prince Edwards Island at Soft Internet Theory at their Centre of the Arts, Linz, Austria as part of the Processing Foundation exhibit for Ars Electronica, and finally, my home, San Francisco in Golden Gate Park, for my first large-scale installation of Computing Shrines with the City and the arts commission. I’ll be visiting Linz (Sep 7-14) and Melbourne (late Nov) for the exhibits, so please give me recs and let me know if you’ll overlap with me :)
   
   I’m also starting to look for journalists to write about the SF installation for mainstream press, so please reach out or connect me if you have recs! There’s a lot of existing discourse about public art in SF, and I hope my piece can show a different angle to it.

3. I want to understand how to start a team: I’m bringing on someone to help me for the first time this fall, and the hardest part was choosing from all the great people who reached out. My long-term goal has always been to one-day have a team to work towards this vision with, and this prompted me to start really thinking about how I can set the foundation for this. I want to understand the first hires for things like this and the best ways to structure it. How do art studios handle this? indie product/game studios? research labs? Where do they get funding for the team?
   
   If you have any thoughts, I’d love any advice and happy to buy/make you a coffee :)

4. New headshots. I was very lucky to have Jeremy come over to host a creative photoshoot with me to give me some new artist portraits to use. This is one of my favorite crazy ones we did inspired by Philippe Halsman. See all of them on Instagram.

Thank you all as always for supporting and believing in me.

Spencer

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This dispatch was sent to 2687 inboxes. My writing is always free and open, but I am independently funded and appreciate any support you can offer. Consider sharing this with a friend and becoming a patron (or for those without Github, subscribing on Substack) for the warm & fuzzy feeling of supporting an indie artist (and access to the community & works-in-progress).

Thank you to the 30 people who supported my independent work with a sponsorship last month, and a warm welcome to Even and Meep.

1. It might be driven by the fact that to be sustainable as an independent in America means to be famous. With everything seemingly getting worse (prices up! wages down! geopolitical conflict and political apathy! will you escape the permanent underclass? ), increasingly it feels like only the best can hope to survive