I, for the most part, never post anything on the internet. I make art but almost never share it with anybody. I make snarky, feminist, political art often with religious undertones. I make it because these are the conversations I want to have. With somebody. Someday. If, I wasn't so afraid. If I was willing to risk making someone mad or hurting someone's feelings I would post my artwork freely.
My partner told me if he only had a couple of weeks to live he would regret not spending more time with family and friends. I felt kind of guilty. I had my oldest son when I was 19 years old. I have been raising kids for 27 years. I have been living in a redneck, conservative, racist, gun-toting, bible-thumping world of politically correct PTA meetings. I HAD to hold back so my kids could have friends. Artwork to this community is the banal mountain landscape and the oil painted deer. See that tole painted frog, yes? *spits chewing tobacco into a beer can* It is much better than that goddamned Picasso. Hiding away artwork during birthday parties, play dates and girl scout meetings is finally a thing of the past.
I have MS. I have had MS for 22 years. I am running out of time. But my youngest girls are in their final stretch of high school (and I am pleased to report they have stopped covering the bare breasts of women on the walls with sticky notes). If I had only two weeks to live, I would be devastated that I never shared and said what I needed to get out of me.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a comment on a Facebook post of an organization I follow. It was my first time injecting myself into a public space for conversation. I have 5 friends on facebook, by the way, three of them are my own children. (You get an idea of my social media prowess.) I spent a long time (too much time) making my words coherent. I posted it. Oh, gawd.
My post became one of the top comments which became even more stressful. I almost deleted it. I had 500 or so likes and 40 comments. Most of the comments were positive, posted in agreement but a few were kind of dismissive and hateful. I thought about why those comments bothered me so much when clearly most people agreed with me. Do I need everyone to agree with me to be at peace? Am I so controlling that I need everyone to "like" my point? Luckily, I have decided I am not that shallow. It wasn't the disagreement. It was the mocking, dismissive tone of the dissenters. I love to debate but I do not like to fight. I don't like to be made fun of. I don't like it when people dismiss my story without really even knowing it.
I recently began posting a few works/thoughts on instagram. Very few. Most often, I spend a long time (too much time) making a post and then decide it would be best not to post it at all. So I don't.
What if people are mean? What if people get offended? (My goal actually is not to offend people although by looking at some of my work, you might think otherwise.) What if people don't get it? What if they hate it? Think it's bad? Almost more disturbing, what if people like it?
But really, who will even see it? Who will even care? What if nobody, not a single person notices what I made? Then what? That, I think, is the bigger risk.