The myth of the perfect, clean workspace

Identity is contextual and, if we are to live, breathe, and grow, it has to remain contextual. The Internet of the “authentic self” — a loathsome, aberrant idea if there ever was one — is an exercise in slowly getting strangled by your past selves.

It's a false binary to say “artists are messy” or to assume that those with well-organized and cleaned studios somehow aren’t doing creative work. We all come to our creative practice in our own way. A societally-induced value judgement on “clean” vs. “messy” has however lodged itself deep within us.

I was talking to a younger friend about this a while back—your Internet presence is increasingly more valuable than your real-life presence. Which is weird and dystopian and I don’t really know how to think about it. But it’s true, and I think people who are like,  I don’t need the Internet , don’t understand the extent to which much of the p

... See more