🗺️ art & no audience, the emperor, web studies
dear creative friends,
I’m happy to be writing you here after so long.
recently, my summer has consisted of: starting a running routine 3x a week, and attempting to practice more sleep discipline, and more “life outside of work”. running outside in Istanbul means getting a full face blast of everything overwhelming at 7:30am: violent hills, bad traffic, cigarette smoke, pollution.
I come home very hot, irritated, and sweaty — which gives me extra permission to be a homebody-hermit the rest of the day. my reasoning is that if I run in this heat, then I’ll have overrided all excuses for not running in more bearable seasons. soon, I’ll also plan to give myself permission to be lazy.
~
🍊 this week: I finished drawing this Emperor tarot card for my friend Amelia, made a case against the pressure to build an audience for artists. I resurfaced house on the web studies, and this post I wrote 8 years ago on the emotional prep to quitting your job.
🎙️ make art for no audience
I deconstruct the pressure to “build an audience.” I’ll disentangle the practice of being an artist — from the byproduct of having an audience — and share how finding freedom from that pressure creates a well of personal power (and paradoxically, will magnetize your audience to you).
LISTEN ON APPLE | LISTEN ON SPOTIFY
make art for no audience — kening zhu
letting go of the pressure to build an audience
👑 drawing the emperor tarot card: rich, inspiring yang energy
this was a belated birthday gift for my friend Amelia. I explore my creative process behind this card, and how I grappled with mixed feelings around male authority.
drawing the emperor tarot: rich, inspiring yang authority — kening zhu
drawing the archetype of masculine authority
🌳 explore house on the web studies
a small collection of visual guides on website-world-building that I made a few years ago.
I’ll be opening registration for house on the webs course soon, in the next month.
🔮 messages resurfacing
how to leap: emotional prep for quitting your job
can’t believe I wrote this in 2016; now I feel like I knew nothing in 2016. but, I knew how to leap. this is what I told myself before leaping.
How to leap: advice on quitting your job — kening zhu
I grew up in a risk adverse, immigrant culture in which the idea of finding the work you loved was always counterbalanced by the idea of having a stable, steady career. When you’re young and uncertain, the easy choice is the one right front of you. It’s the path you fall into out of convenience, as
finding your people: a visual guide
a visual guide from house on the webs studies on “finding” your audience.
finding your people: a visual guide — kening zhu
finding your audience, one person at a time
the year of radical change
every year feels like a year of radical change, but this is from one of my more emotionally tortured years in art & business
the year of radical change — kening zhu
a collection of everything I created this year
what i learned about freedom in art & business
in which I found my own commitment to “make art for no audience”
what I learned about freedom in art & business — kening zhu
reflections on my year and musings on the process - what I learned, how I suffered, and how I grew as an artist and human being in 2019
📝 notes (what's rolling around my head)
my business as a garden maze to wander through, not a marketing funnel to convince people to fall through.
I’m experimenting with rocks & paper as my tactile, board-game-esque business project management system (no scissors, for now)
sleep discipline - prioritizing sleep is hard because it is as yin as it gets, but I want to reframe sleep as a delicious, mysterious subconscious portal
energy cycles of motivation - what do your cycles look like? I can ride my intense motivation fuel for 2-3 days, and hold an idea at the forefront of my mind for 5-10 days, then I get bored/forgetful/distracted. there’s my aries moon.
business = efficient systems for my creative energy, in service. how would I approach my business differently from that framework?
🍄 inspiration log
this is one of those weeks when I’m so in the weeds of my ecosystem that I’m consuming/using almost nothing, except…
listening to: gene keys by richard rudd on spotify audiobooks. constantly re-amazed by this system of contemplation. I love Richard Rudd’s ethos around empowering the individual in their own process.
an app I’m using everyday for audio journaling: cocoonweaver. an amazing app, and very generous for all of its functionalities being free.
🌸 goodbye for now...
until next week, my friends.
wishing you gentle summer nights and plenty of AC days.
🪼 kening
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🗺️ this is guide.notes 42, a weekly letter on creative alchemy & growing digital worlds.
🍃 find me on my podcast: botanical studies of internet magic.
🪷 explore working with me via my 1:1 containers: advising, mentorships, and creation services.
💧 send me a gift. water my world.