Episodes
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Today we will be discussing the integrative cycle. The magical cycle that keeps me from craving a scroll session and connects me to the abundance in my practice. THIS is the cycle that keeps me from touching generative AI. As a reminder, I’m AI sober and it feels delicious.
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Read the original post after or while you listen
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See my map for the Integrative Cycle
See my Obsidian web I mentioned
See my computer organization after years of maintenance work
Need help with a social media fast? Here’s an essay I wrote about it.
Hank Green’s Chewy Decimal System
Final audio editing by my partner, Wes Jackson.
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This week, I’m taking a gentle pause from the essay series on our creative cycles due to a health scare upon returning home from the Eastern Sierra. I’ll be okay, but my energy and capacity is much lower than usual. I’ll be back with another essay on the integrative cycle next week! This short essay is a gentle show-and-tell of sorts about the things I made while out in the wilderness.
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Read the original post, and see the art from it here
Why hiking was out of reach for me last year, an essay on how I injured my back.
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Buy my Art!
The book I mentioned, The Overstory by Richard Powers (bookshop.org affiliate link)
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Missing episodes?
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Last week, we talked about the productive cycle of our craft. Today, we’re going to deepen into the phase that tends to follow intense periods of making, the reflective cycle.
This is one of the more overlooked cycles of our craft but totally necessary to really honor the effort of making something. It’s the cycle where we look at our work and review what we’ve done, apply to shows, invite studio visits, journal, and on occasion, make a social media post. The longer I have allowed myself to linger in this cycle, the more I can identify what is Quality and what isn’t, what’s working and what’s not — completely independent from algorithms.
The deepest reward of the reflective cycle is how it connects us to reciprocity and appreciating our gifts instead of chasing prestige.
I just redesigned my entire website, you should go check it out!
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Listen to Shannon Algeo on Off The Grid
Read Against Analytics by CJ the X
my interview with Misty Granades about long term sustainability!
If you want to read the original essay you can do that here
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https://melmitchelljackson.com/craft-tutoring
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the real shapes of our creative cycles don't look how you'd expect. Today we will explore the productive cycle, the expectations we tend to put on it, and I'll help you feel into whether or not this is actually where your art sits right now.
If you want to read the original essay you can do that here:
https://melmitchelljackson.substack.com/p/why-we-cant-always-be-in-a-productive
if you’re ready to gently improve your skills in drawing, painting, procreate, knitting, photography, or tech tools, i’d love to work with you 1-on-1.
you sign up for a time, I send you an email, you share what you’ve been working on and I think on itThen we meet!
The way that it works is:I’ll give you feedback on your current work, show you a demo of the technique you should focus on right now, and send you a human-written follow up email to connect all the dots. Sessions are normally $40 for 30 mins or $70 for an hour, but both are 10% off if you book before June 30th with code SOLSTICE 🙂
if you learn best in a group, hop over here and sign up for the waitlist for one of my upcoming classes, or join the cohort in my alternative art-school, Emergent Classroom over on Patreon
I am running an almost-summer sale on all of my self-guided classes! I’ve got The Hikers Way on how to rewild your art with time in nature ($99), another on working with collage to make flyers and images for the internet that are distinctly Anti-AI ($39), and my most popular gouache and watercolor class for beginners all available to do at your own pace ($89)
if you want to spend a guided weekend in nature learning how to transform your creative practice back into one of wellness and divorced from social media stats, book a creative retreat with me!
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hello and welcome (back) to Persistent Bloom, 4 years later we've reset and are sharing essay dispatches in an audio format to see how sharing as a pod once again feels
if you would rather read this essay, or read along while you listen, find that at the link here!
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Here are the links I mentioned in the vid:
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Did list video
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See my old videos
This podcast was not created or written using AI, you can learn more about my AI Policy, here
