CORE

Earlier this year I conducted some research about young adult artists who use Instagram to "curate" their image/art.  The following questions are about your experience and relationship with Instagram. Please feel free to respond to each other and make sure to write your name before your answer. (This interview took place between July 19, 2019 and August 14, 2019).

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First of all, it's been over a year since we did the last interview.  How are you doing? How has your year been?

 

Mony: I'm ok. Still in school doing animation. The year has been tricky but I'm a lot happier.

 

Amir: I’m mostly well! I’ve been getting a lot of opportunities, and have really been enjoying life as an artist. I recently bought plants & my living space is finally put together well. I’m having some family issues, but overall I’m good!

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Cameron: I’m doing well! I’m entering my last year of college this fall, so I’m getting ready for a lot of change, but this past year has been full of personal and artistic growth, so I feel I am on my way towards being prepared for what’s to come. We’ll see!

 

Jazzmin: It’s been a busy year of making opportunities and trying to stay inspired, as well as building up to my first year in college, which has caused a lot of anxiety over the summer as well as nervous excitement.

 

 

How old were you when you first joined Instagram?  Why did you join?

 

Mony: I'm not so sure. I think I was in 8th or 9th grade. I think I just joined because it was the new thing.

 

Amir: I started in 8th grade as well, for the same reasons. I wanted to leave facebook, and post group photos, and look like I was having fun. I deleted that Instagram in 9th grade, I started another one that summer that lasted a few months, and then deleted that one as well. I felt like the app was very superficial and I felt it affecting my self esteem so I cut it out asap. I started my current art instagram exactly 2 years ago, because I knew if I wasn’t posting photos of myself Instagram could be a good tool to share my art.  

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Cameron: I believe I first joined Instagram towards the end of 8th grade when I was around 13. I don’t remember it very clearly, but I think I created an account because it was what my friends were doing, and it was a new, exciting app, and it seemed cool. 

 

Jazzmin: I got a smartphone for the first time in 6th grade but wasn’t allowed to have Instagram until 7th grade. I then didn’t use it for almost two years. It was a way to connect with my friends at my school, but I realized I wasn’t using it at the time. I picked it up again before high school because it had become more of a collaborative network that I felt like I could healthily engage in. 

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Do you have more than one account?  If so, why? 

 

Mony: I have four accounts 😂I use one to post my photography and then the other account is supposed to have my other visual art.  I've never come around to posting things on it though. The other 2 are collaborative.

 

Amir: I have 2, and am thinking about making a third. The main account is my art Instagram where I post my art pieces. The second account is my Finsta, where I essentially diary. I post my sketches there and use it for inspiration. The possible third account would either be a personal blog type account, a jewelry/accessory selling account, or something politically motivated. 

 

Cameron: I also have four accounts (which sounds wild to say because I’ve never thought about it before). I have my regular account, my finsta, an art account I created a few years ago where I post all sorts of random sketches, and another, newer art account (@artcameronangela). I created my new art account this past October because I wanted to use IG not as a place to simply throw random drawings and try to post every day to maintain a following, but to really think about and curate content. I wanted to be displaying my “best work” instead of just all my work. I also wanted people I know, like friends and family, to be able to follow an art account and see my work, and I wanted a clean slate for that.

 

Jazzmin: I have two accounts, one personal and one professional for my art. I’ve been trying to post to my art account more, but it’s easiest to showcase my work on my website or Facebook, where there are a lot more people that would like to purchase prints or my book. 

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How do you use Instagram?  Do you see it as a suitable way to display your art?

 

Mony: I think is an easy way to stay relevant as an artist. Everyone has social media accounts making it a simple way to get people to see your work..

 

Amir: I mostly use it as a portfolio. It’s really helpful to post all of my documented work, and occasionally post process pictures. I think it’s suitable for sure. I sell quite a few pieces from instagram, and a lot of the commissions I get come from people seeing my instagram. I’m still trying to figure out what I want my personal branding to be, but once I do, Instagram will probably be my main way of communicating that brand. 

 

Cameron: I enjoy Instagram because I can both see what friends and family are doing and explore the incredibly diverse world of artists on the platform, but I struggle with using it as a place to post my own art. The format doesn't really support posting art (the size limitations of posts, the lack of a zoom function, etc.) so I often find myself sacrificing some part of a piece of art to post it. But despite the difficulties, I love the community you can build through social media art accounts, and I would never have discovered some artists that have had profound impacts on my life and style if I wasn't on IG. So, while Instagram is definitely frustrating, it is an important way for me to expose my work to an audience, and to find community and inspiration. 

 

Side note: I find it much easier to build a drawing/portrait off of an already existing face/structure, so I also love Instagram because it's like a pre-packaged, curated source of reference photos. 99% of everything I draw is referenced from someone I found on the IG Explore page.

 

Jazzmin: Instagram is a good place to put more casual moments in my artistic process, including sketches and updates on my projects. It’s also been my favorite way to source inspiration. I have several saved folders filled with inspiring work from other artists and random photos that attracted me. It’s especially inspiring as an artist because it feels like anyone can build a community on Instagram with their art. It’s not just a place to display your work but also interact with others and find inspiration. 

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When and where do you experience art most intensely?  This can differ depending on your definition of "art", the medium or even the artists themselves, so don't be afraid to be specific.  This question isn't directly related to Instagram, but I'm just interested to see if (in this small group) we experience art similarly.

 

Amir: For me it’s definitely Museums (Preferably FREE museums) and Galleries. Seeing art in person is always so much more rewarding and inspiring as opposed to social media documentation of art. Also witnessing artists talk about their work in person is just precious. I actually get time to be alone with the art piece, and I’m not prompted to keep on swiping for more like in social media. I also get to experience that size of a piece, textures, colors, and surfaces that social media is unable to capture. I think in general social media shortens my attention span and I spend 10-20 seconds looking at an art piece, but I can comfortably spend 2 hours at a museum in one exhibit. 

 

Cameron: This is an interesting question because it forces me to think about not just when and where I experience art, but how, and what that looks like to me and in my life. To start, like Amir said, I don’t think I experience art most intensely via Instagram, because I am so accustomed to thinking of it as a casual, social media platform that I don’t give much time to each image I come across. The scale of IG posts also makes it difficult to feel the full impact of some pieces, especially larger, more detailed ones. 

 

Given that, I would say that I experience visual art (drawings, paintings, sculpture, etc.) most intensely in museums, especially if I’m visiting by myself. A few years ago I probably would have said that I have a love-hate relationship with visiting museums because other people around me were always distracting, and I couldn’t focus on the art, but I think I’ve learned how to give all my focus to a piece of art on the wall until it feels like just me and the art in the room. I love taking my time and allowing myself to feel the power of the art, and I always feel more deeply connected not just to the work - but to the artist themselves - when I can see the piece up close, inches away. 

 

Tangentially, I experience movies/short films/music most intensely by myself, tucked away in my room, where I feel free to experience emotions most honestly. I like it when a piece of visual media is physically very close to me, or when I can cancel out all other noise and just focus on how music makes me feel. 

 

Jazzmin: Most of the times that I’ve gotten to make it to museums have been school-sanctioned events, and so I found a lot of ways to get resourceful when going to see works in person wasn’t an option. Although I appreciate art in museums in a different way, the most constant interaction I have with art is actually on Instagram. There is even an art to the way an influencer might choose to make a post, and on my art account I try to surround myself with accounts that bring that artistic meaning in some way. It’s been a great tool recently while trying to learn from some of the greatest digital illustrators out there, especially since digital art, being made on technology, is well-suited for Instagram. I’ve also started collecting as many art books as I can, although I wish they weren’t so expensive! The best part about Instagram is that it’s free!

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I go back-and-forth between really hating Instagram, subsequently deleting the app off my phone and then re-downloading it because I get a nagging feeling that I'm "missing out."  I've had my account for over 7 years but still get anxious about posting photos. I never post but always find myself on Instagram… This little rant leads me to my final question, do you like Instagram (and if you're like me, it isn't a simple "yes" or "no")?

 

Amir: I’m the same way with instagram. I have a lot of anxiety over posting, and most of the time I switch accounts after posting for a good 24 hours to avoid compulsively refreshing for likes. I found out from iPhone statistics that I average about 20 minutes a week on Instagram, this went up recently when I started posting again. When I started my Instagram I posted 3-5 times a week for a few months, then school started and I was posting about 1 time a week, then it went down to once a month, and I’m currently phasing in between those states. I’m in a posting mood. I haven't posted about my projects in a long time, so I have a lot to post about. Overall Instagram is a mostly business tool for me, so I try not to like or dislike it. 

 

Cameron: I agree entirely with everything Mikala said in her question. I am always going back and forth between loving Instagram and hating it, and recently I’ve been alternating between the “it’s your account so you can do what you want and post whatever and whenever you want without worrying about the rules of ‘IG culture’” mindset and the “don’t even go on IG it’s all fake and soul-sucking and never makes you feel better” mindset. I am admittedly kind of addicted to Instagram, and out of all social media/apps on my phone, I probably check it the most, so it’s been hard for me even to consider divorcing myself from it or deleting it off my phone. I have that same nagging compulsion to “catch up” and see everything on my feed because for some reason I don’t want to miss out on anything. As I type this, I’m leaning towards the answer “no,” I don’t like Instagram, because I think it exists as a kind of a crutch in my life. It allows me to feel like I know what my friends are doing/how they are without actually talking to them and catching up, which I know from experience is a dangerous hole to fall into. On the surface I want to have the mindset that IG is just an app, and a tool, and that I should be able to use it/regard it healthily, and in a measured way, but internally I know how much power it has to mess with our mental health and perceptions of ourselves and others. 

 

That was a bit of a rant, but I think I’d go with, no, I don’t “like” Instagram, but I am still in the process of figuring out how to use it and stop it from “using me.”

 

Jazzmin: Artistically, I love Instagram. I think I have less of the back and forth because I keep my uses of my two accounts very separate. When using my personal account, I have very low expectations of Instagram, which is funny considering that it’s still the same app. But getting sucked into the hole that is my Instagram feed has been a problem for me recently. I thought it would get better with more friends and confidence exiting high school, but I feel just as susceptible to the social media pressures as everyone else. On my art account, however, it’s like endless sources of inspiration. I’m often frustrated because I don’t feel like I have the time or space to make all of my ideas a reality. It’s a really lovely place to be in in so many ways and I hope to take more advantage of that space when I’m faced with artistic challenges and assignments in college. 

 

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Do you have any additional comments or questions you want to raise to the group or ask me?  

 

Mony: Take a break from social media. 

 

Cameron: I have so many thoughts about social media that it’s difficult for me even to pinpoint a question I may have or a final comment, but I guess I wonder what anyone else thinks the future of social media platforms like Instagram will be, and how they will continue to influence global daily life on such a large scale. This is a very open-ended line of thought, but social media influences our lives in any number of ways that I don’t always think about deeply enough, and it seems impossible to narrow down or quantify its impact in a certain number of questions. 

 

I also want to say thank you to Mikala for writing such great questions! I really had to think deeply about my answers, and you helped me interrogate my own use of Instagram and social media. 

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Jazzmin: I absolutely love that you’re connecting Instagram and art! I’ve had similar conversations about the politics of Instagram and the ways that youth have used it to cause influence, as well as social pressures through Instagram, but the artistic presence there is undeniable. Social media influences everyone in many different ways. For me, I’ve managed to keep them very separate, although I can acknowledge that one is more toxic than the other. I think exposing the best parts of Instagram to others, like the artistic community, is a great way to get back to the roots of what Instagram should be around for. Thank you for starting this conversation! I hope these answers were helpful, and I’m wishing you all the best. 

 

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I want to thank all of the artists for taking the time to participate in this project. I value all of their voices and the thoughts they shared. If you are interested in this project and/or want to be involved in any way, please go to the "Contact" and write me (Mikala Jones) an email.