Will you join the counter-culture movement?

An invitation to do things a bit differently

Hi there,

I truly hope you don’t feel like a headless chicken running around this final season of the year.

December tends to have that effect on people, me included, and I always wondered why.

• Why do we put so much pressure on ourselves?

• Why have we learnt to put so much pressure on ourselves?

The longer I’m on this path of following my gut in a world that tries to fill it with fluff, the clearer it gets how much of our behaviors are learnt from external sources.

This is a good thing, though.

Because learned behaviors, when identified, can be unlearned and relearned in ways that better serve us.

Maybe a funny bridge to build, but this is the same with everything within the artist life and business.

Just think about it, most of us have learnt to feel fear following our passion, because passion is irrational and as such, not to be trusted.

But what if it’s the other way around? Our passion is an inherent guiding force to be trusted more than anything else…

My philosophy is that the more we lean into our true selves, the more we stand out.

The more we lean away from standardised recipes, away from the copy-paste culture of trying to replicate what a successful life should look like… the more we will succeed in building the life WE are meant to live.

I want to invite you to join the counter-culture movement.

I say the, as opposed to my, because I don’t think I have the right to claim the movement as mine. It’s universal. It’s us.

To me, following your gut, is at its essence a counter-culture move. Because most people are taught not to follow their instincts. In fact, we’re all taught to settle, to listen, to follow.

To lead, on the other hand, and to be a leader in our own lives, is a journey that we must pursue on our own.

By the way… there it was again… the word… PURSUE.

I recently wrote about how I think life is not about the journey, but about pursuing the journey. This is a massive difference with regard to being proactive vs passive.

A journey can be set out FOR you, or it can be created BY you.

Life is about pursing, and this, too, is part of the counter-culture movement.

Go.
Chase.
Your.
Dreams.

The counter-culture movement as a representation of the work I’m trying to do, the legacy I’m trying to leave, came as an epiphany just the other day.

You see, since I set this ball in movement, (which really refers to this publication Follow Your Gut), I lost track of my mission. All I knew was that I had to write. I had to pursue my passion for writing and sharing my philosophies about the artist life and frankly, life at large…

Life IS an art, and as such it can’t be contained.

Yet society tries to contain it. Constantly. It tries to limit you. Limit your beliefs around what one can and cannot do.

I’ve gained a lot of clarity these last couple of weeks. I know my mission now, and it’s the same as it has been for the past 8 years: My mission is to get more people to create.

To be creators, dream-chasers, passion-pursuers, culture-darers…. ART-makers!

Bring out your supplies and start making. Get your hands dirty (not literally, perhaps).

Sorry, had to put a black and white filter because the light here at night is very funky.

In my main art business I, apart from doing original work, teach the power of modern hand embroidery. I wish to encourage and empower people to expand their vision about what they can do with needle and thread (and to create with their hands!).

Here, I love to write thought provoking work that hopefully triggers a neuron or two to spin faster, but something has been missing; A physical component.

Hand embroidery is easy to see how it takes place in the real world, off the web. I’m yet to see virtual reality create a stitch-able space, though one should never say never.

But writing… It has become digital. A loss of deeper processing between muscle memory and mind. With Ai infiltrating the beauty of human art, how do we even know what’s real anymore?

I want to do something radical. Something backwards.

Today, radical often means to go back to basics. Simple. Backwards, though forward. I think there’s a chance that this too is the other way around just like passion… That what is the new future of art, is what used to be the past. HAND MADE stuff in smaller community…

Just imagine an ANALOGUE REVOLUTION. Sign me up, please.

Remember what I said in the beginning about learnt behaviors? It’s the same with beliefs. As a result of the digital revolution and evolvement of the creator economy, less and less people sit down to write by hand.

Even fewer consume handwritten work. So I want to give that to you. I want to give that to me.

I write by hand almost daily when I’m together with my daughters. It’s part of the legacy I want to leave; To be seen physically making art, not just typing on a keyboard or smartphone. My kids don’t see me making art when I’m on my phone. But they see me building my legacy when I write by hand.

The other day I scribbled two Cheat Sheets about email marketing for artists as my daughters roamed around freely, enjoying themselves. I did it by hand. The words were flowing as a result of soon a decade of experience of independent artistry and online marketing.

Merely thinking about transcribing the Cheat Sheets made me cringe.

NO.

My creative soul screamed NO.

Any sensible person would transcribe it, clean it up digitally, because it looks more professional that way…

But, NO. No. No.

I have full confidence in the value of my experience and the value of the information I share. How it looks like, more specifically whether it’s digitally translated or not, does not define its quality.

In fact, stepping into the role of being my own Art Director, I think it’s quite the opposite. To leave handwritten notes raw bears witness of the human touch. The art of the written word and thought processing, with flaws intact.

I’ve created a Visual Email Marketing Flow Chart for artists, AND a 15 FAQs Cheat Sheet about Email Marketing BY HAND. It’s by definition human made. And I friggin love it.

I’ve uploaded the scanned cheat sheets to the FYG Library, which is accessible to all paying readers right here.

In the library you’ll also find my e-book “When Will You Get A Real Job”. Vol.1 of the Follow Your Gut essay collection will soon be added, (which I really want to call counter-culture!!!!!).

You may think it’s nuts. I’m perfectly ok with that. You may love it. That would be cool.

By sharing raw handwritten work, I hope to achieve one or all of the following:

• Make at least someone think “wait, did she just do that?!” to which I’ll respond with thoughts like “oh yes, yes I did”.

• Lower the bar as a way to show you that YOU make the rules for your own show

• Have FUN writing with my girls in tow (imagine an entire essay collection written by hand… Can’t get much closer to an intimate relationship of reading someone’s journal… Touching! Powerful! I want to do it yesterday!)

Now, the only thing left to re-ask is;

Will you join the counter-culture movement and do things that makes perfect sense to you but seemingly no one else?

Thank you for being with me,

Love, Elin

Ps. Don’t miss to download the Cheat Sheets if you want to figure out how to build a more sustainable art business when you’re short on time. You’ll love it!

Or download them here if you’re in.