The Great Unfollowing

Latest works I completed this week. Feeling that "blue"- not to be confused with the blues.

My new morning routine while I sip coffee and scroll online is to clean up my Instagram. In particular-my art account @galleryrodriguez

Years ago as an experiment I hired one of those companies to organically grow your social media account. Basically they compliment a crapload of accounts all day and follow random people (although its supposed to be targeted to your specifications i.e. only art, design, galleries,etc) and as a result you get followed back. I was just curious how these entities work and ended the experiment after a few days.

There was tons of nonsense in my feed- bad erotic photography, instagram "models" and I use that word super loosely and sarcastically, basic moms in Russia, fitness coaches, profiles with one photo, etc. So as a result my following count WAY EXCEEDS the followers and if you know anything about the stupid algorithm-Instagram doesnt like it and will hide your posts. (Thanks Zuckerbish)

I should preface all this by saying I REALLY DO NOT CARE about Instagram and in fact I dislike it immensely since Facebook took it over. However- as a business I still need to get my business and art seen and connected so that means people actually need to be seeing my posts. So...the great unfollowing begins.

All these random profiles that do not pertain to my business, don't interact with me, are not even real or active...unfollowed! And it feels good to sweep my feed and see only art, artists I like, nature photography that is amazing and yes even just normal people if they have some authentic life to share.

Like one guy just posts humble photos of himself and his life with his cat and his yard and food- that would be grounds for deletion-but I can relate to his life. Theres no posturing, slick wannabe videos, filters or trying to be something he isn't. Its very real and authentic and I appreciate that.

I want to connect with what Im seeing and relate to it as a human. That's where Im at in life. I want real and genuine.

At first I felt bad about unfollowing some of these people but in reality they were not even following me back lol! So piu piu piu-gone! It feels good to shake the numbers down.

But don't spend too long on Instagram doing this because real life is way more important. Today is payroll work and painting time in the studio.

Live authenticly- the world really needs that right now.

Comments

So what's the Scenario?

Street Artist 'My Dog Sighs' Paints Faces on Cans Found Littered on the Street I found this interesting art on Pinterest and thought it would be a good example for a proposed scenario.....indulge me if you will.... The scenario is this....this street artist paints on cans. Pretty cool right? Pretty neat! He's probably not the only one who paints on cans in the world but he most likely is the only one in his little neck of the woods and art circle. Ok, let's pretend I invite this CAN painter to be in this big group show we do annually at my gallery. (This is pretend land, I dont have a gallery but roll with me...) Ok, he is a hit, everyone thinks his can faces are awesome and he's considered pretty unique for doing this medium in our little art circle. Ok fast forward into the future....it's a year later and it's time for our big annual show...here's the scenario....we don't invite the CAN artist to come show again BUT we do hand out a can ...

Year of the Dragon

First off, Happy New Year to my blog readers! Not sure if I actually have blog readers but if I do- I wish you well! We are coming up on the Chinese Lunar New Year and it's Year of the Dragon! I jumped into the year at a crazy pace and really need to pace myself for ALL THE THINGS I'm trying to accomplish. First off it was very important to me to launch a couple things and explore some other platforms. Those being: Tiktok, Patreon and YouTube I'll go on to say that I actually did not want to do any of these. I repeat DID NOT WANT TO DO THESE. *Didn't think I was worthy for people to pay me on Patreon and also thought creating perks for people monthly was a lot of work. So far ...IT IS A LOT OF WORK....but I am new and growing from the ground up and that's how it is. Growing pains! I'm working to learn and streamline this so it goes hand in hand with... *YouTube channel! Who actually does not enjoy seeing my weird face and voice in a video? Hi. ME. I really di...

The Age of Upgrade

BIG BATCH OF HAND PAINTED WAX FOR SAN FRANCISCO I wanted to do a blog about the upgrade I'm doing and why. Because I am an artist and not a business person I have been lax on so many things I shouldn't have been and caused myself a lot of headaches. This was a year of growing pains for my business and days before my birthday I decided my new age of 39 would be one of grand changes. For starters...I'm typing this on an old Android phone. It's the only equipment I have. My old Mac finally gave up the ghost and I can no longer do any graphic designing in Photoshop or even save files. This will need to be upgraded, I need a computer. Let's talk about vinyl though...I started doing the vinyl about 6 years ago and they were pretty basic novice attempts at painting on vinyl. After many experiments, failures and tons of practice... I have brought them into their own. They started as $30 discs and climbed as I got better. I marked everything DOWN to $50 this year...

Art Plunge

Search This Blog