A quick round-up of posts from Cream of The Crop worth going back to.

Posts scroll past quickly, so I thought I'd pull ten together in one place. Nothing fancy. Just a handful that are worth another look if they slipped by first time round.

1. I'm the cream of the crop

The one that kicked this whole thing off. Where I've come from, why I started writing here, and the pull between the life I've built and the one I keep being drawn towards.

2. Give yourself permission and you'll find the way

We wait to feel ready. Ready almost never turns up on time. This one's about getting out of your own way and just starting.

3. The turtle's approach: Slow & Steady

Progress doesn't always look like progress when you're in the middle of it. A small nod to the slow route, and why it's usually the one that actually works.

4. I caught hopesickness from creative legend, Mark Denton

About the lift you get from meeting people who are already living the way you'd like to be living. Sometimes you don't need a plan. You just need to catch a bit of what they've got.

5. DREI FRAGEN with Shagun Singh

One of the Drei Fragen interviews. Short, honest conversations with other artists about making work, doubt, identity, and the rest. Shagun's is a good one.

6. Creativity Unleashed with SLART and Dean Jackson

On taking your creative life a bit more seriously. Not in a grim way, in a "this deserves real time and energy" way.

7. Memento Vivere

A bit of a milestone. The moment something I'd been quietly working on went public. Worth a read if you missed the announcement.

8. Where the Dead Lie and Art Lives: Exploring the Crypt Gallery for the first time

The behind-the-scenes version of Memento Vivere. Nerves, excitement, the "oh god this is really happening" bit. Honest about all of it.

9. Screw it, let's do it (in 6 Days)

Scrappier than most. Sometimes you stop planning and just make the thing happen. This is what that looks like.

10. We Need The Artist's 4-Minute Mile

Less about me, more about what artists can do for each other. Breaking invisible ceilings. Showing other people what's possible.

If one of them catches you, let me know which. Always nice to hear.

SLART

This is what came up during a studio session with this week. (There’s nothing like a studio sesh with a mate who loves art as much as you do, and loves beer as much as you do too.)

Cheers 🍻

WIP 🚧 (Thanks for buying me some pinkest pink pigment by Stuart Semple).

Now tell me, what do you think is going on in this piece?

For now, auf wiedersehen.

SLART

⏳ 30 second read, 30 second action…

Ignore if you’ve read already…

Art is my life. But when I see amazing people like Beth Raps create a promise to raise funds for a refugee project that will make a real difference and not get absorbed by a charity CEO’s salary, I just had to share.

Beth runs RAISING CLARITY, and she’s one of those rare people who actually puts her energy where her mouth is. Not performatively. Not for clout. She just gets on with making things better, and she’s bloody good at it.

She’s committed to raising $5,250 for a small, community-based solar installation in a refugee camp in Kenya, run by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. She’s already 40% there and the deadline is tomorrow, so this is proper urgent.

Here’s why it matters.

The community this serves is made up of queer refugees. They’ve already been through enough just to end up in the camp, but being queer is criminalised in the countries they’ve fled. Even inside the camp they’re still targeted. Still bullied. Still assaulted. Still not safe.

The solar installation will power security lights. That means safety at night. It’ll also provide the means to boil drinking water, which is scarce and expensive in the camp. Not freely provided like you’d assume. There are more benefits too, and you can read about them on the GoFundMe page.

Beth said she’d raise this by the end of March and she means it. If you can chip in, do it today.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Every £1 counts.

Thanks

SLART

Art is my life. But when I see amazing people like Beth Raps create a promise to raise funds for a refugee project that will make a real difference and not get absorbed by a charity CEO’s salary, I just had to share.

Beth runs RAISING CLARITY, and she’s one of those rare people who actually puts her energy where her mouth is. Not performatively. Not for clout. She just gets on with making things better, and she’s bloody good at it.

She’s committed to raising $5,250 for a small, community-based solar installation in a refugee camp in Kenya, run by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. She’s already 40% there and the deadline is tomorrow, so this is proper urgent.

Here’s why it matters.

The community this serves is made up of queer refugees. They’ve already been through enough just to end up in the camp, but being queer is criminalised in the countries they’ve fled. Even inside the camp they’re still targeted. Still bullied. Still assaulted. Still not safe.

The solar installation will power security lights. That means safety at night. It’ll also provide the means to boil drinking water, which is scarce and expensive in the camp. Not freely provided like you’d assume. There are more benefits too, and you can read about them on the GoFundMe page.

Beth said she’d raise this by the end of March and she means it. If you can chip in, do it today.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Every £1 counts.

Thanks

SLART

I nearly introduced myself as a corporate drone and didn’t even flinch.

That moment hit me harder than any rejection letter. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The last few weeks have been a strange kind of awakening. I took two weeks unpaid leave from my day job, replaced the lost income through a couple of side projects, and barely broke a sweat doing it, of which I am super grateful. It gave me a clear glimpse of what life could look like with a bit more structure and a bit less of someone else’s agenda.

Here’s the fucking uncomfortable truth I’ve been sitting with: I massively underestimate myself. I think a lot of people do. But I’m starting to actually believe in my own capability now, not in a blind hope kind of way, but in a tangible, I-built-a-thing-and-got-paid kind of way.

I’ve had four job interviews recently, three internal and one external. The external one was the eye-opener. The role pays 70% more than I currently earn. Seventy. Fucking. Percent. More. It sounds obscene until you realise how thoroughly the corporate machine has conditioned you to expect a 3% annual increase and be grateful for it. That’s been my frame of reference for over a decade. I’m approaching 44 in June and I’m only just clocking this.

I’ve been in the same role at the same company for five years. Younger, less experienced people are managing large teams around me. I say that not with bitterness, but with genuine curiosity about how I got here. I work in a gung-ho, scattered way, intensely focused when the subject interests me, and completely disengaged by meetings that exist to schedule other meetings. I’m not sure I even want to manage people. I think I’d be decent at it, because I genuinely give a shit about people. but the politics would swallow whatever satisfaction the leadership brought.

So, the external role. It’s with Pencil, a platform that builds AI-powered ad and marketing content. The job description felt like it was written for me, though I felt slightly underqualified technically. Didn’t stop me. I built a demo app for the interview task: upload a brand guidelines PDF, enter a brief, pick a format, and it generates a compliant image in about 90 seconds after multiple review layers. I tested it on McDonald’s, an old brand doc from 2019 that I found on the web. Two hours of tinkering. I was pretty pleased with it.

The interview itself was fine. The VP of Product was friendly, five weeks into the role himself, a lot of Amazon background. I felt like I held my own. He gave nothing away, no feedback, no social cues, nothing. Classic. He also mentioned mid-interview that the role would be 50/50 client-facing, not heavily technical. Almost the opposite of what was advertised. Good reminder not to take a job description as gospel.

I left the interview not really caring whether I got it or not. That felt like progress. I felt free.

Then came the moment that shook me.

A new senior manager started at my day job. Sharp, well-connected, name-dropping Netflix execs like they’re bessie mates ( will know them). During introductions I said my hobbies were basketball and pickleball, as he’s American, I challenged him to a game next week, and carried on. Not once did the word “artist” enter my mind. (Although, factually, Art is not a hobby for me)

Walking away I felt hollow. I pictured myself at 85, telling someone: “I used to make art, but life got in the way.” That image scared me more than any career uncertainty ever has. All that happened within 60 seconds of walking back to my desk.

I haven’t abandoned it. I promise. I’m in the middle of something I can’t fully talk about yet, a kind of metamorphosis, but it’s coming. The art is still there.

In the meantime: I got rejected from the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2026. I didn’t make the next round of the Jackson’s Art Prize either. Paying entry fees for rejections is starting to feel like a choice between self-belief and a decent meal out with the family.

Ce-la-fucking-vie.

But then the universe did its thing. Harrie Dearing and I have been gifted a new art space. Something exciting is brewing between two outsider artists. Watch this space.

Here’s a tiny sneak peek...

For now, adieu.

SLART

I crave a totally fresh start.

I’ve got six years of paintings sitting in a Big Yellow storage unit and it’s costing me money every month to keep them there. Work made between 2019 and 2025, raw figurative expressionism, pieces I’m genuinely proud of, just sitting in the dark.

That’s not what art is for.

I want that chapter of work out in the world, on walls, in homes, being looked at by people who connect with it. Not stacked in a storage unit while I pay for the privilege.

So here’s an open offer. If you run a gallery, an exhibition space, a cafe, a community venue, anywhere with walls basically, I’d love to talk. I’m offering my work on a 50% commission basis. You sell it, we split it. Simple as that. Or if you just want to display it and give it some light and air, I’m open to that conversation too.

You can see everything here:

https://www.slart.me/artwork

If something speaks to you or you think your audience would connect with it, just reply to this email. No formal process, no lengthy proposals. Just a conversation.

And if this isn’t for you but you know someone who runs a local gallery or exhibition space, feel free to forward this on. You never know.

Thanks for reading.

SLART
British Outsider Artist

Hello SLART,

Thank you for submitting your work to Jackson's Art Prize 2026.

Congratulations, we are delighted to let you know that one or more of your entries have been selected for the Extended Longlist!

View the Extended Longlist gallery here, and search by title to see which of your work(s) went through.

This year set a new record, with 16,280 entries submitted from 110 countries, meaning the competition was incredibly strong. As an artist on the Extended Longlist of 4,200 works, your works have made it to the top 26% of entries.

Stay tuned for the announcement of the Longlist on Friday 6 March.

Best wishes,
Josephine Zentner,
Jackson's Art Prize Coordinator

Send me triumphant vibes please.

Have a good week,

SLART
British Outsider Artist

My entry:

Blue Man.

P.S: what did you think of the longlist?

I’ve been questioning what art is this week. I’ve been a proponent of art having no rules, and I do still stand by that. But then what makes good art? It made me question whether popular art like Andy Warhol’s is good, or just popular. I don’t have answers to these questions but it’s given me a weird sense of freedom whereby any kind of comparison to other artists has vanished.

I’ve just been sitting with a painting that has no agenda. It feels uncomfortable and freeing at the same time:

First layers, experimenting with Payne’s grey mix, then moving on to Phthalo Blue oil paint and linseed layers. I’ve missed the luxuriousness of using oil paints, it certainly requires patience.

Have a good week,

SLART
British Outsider Artist

P.S: WHAT IS GOOD ART?… comment the first thing that comes to Mind.

From Frustration to Printing to Art

On a standard Tuesday, I felt intense boredom at work. So I decided to express some random thoughts down in a document and printed them out.

If I wasn’t an artist, it would probably come across as crazy.

There was another expression around my inner conflict between art and my day job but I’ve lost the file.

So, in the studio soon after, I started decoupaging these print-outs to a canvas and a wood board, well actually, it’s an old door from something.

This itself was extremely cathartic!

Then the day after I added another layer to the decoupage.

Calming, grounding, relaxing, freeing, forgetting.

Soon after, I was drifting off to sleep to recover from illness, when some dots joined up in my mind. I had an old unfinished piece that I’d abandoned and I had the flash of inspiration to paint it entirely red and title it “In defence of the Devil”. It had three levels, first a horned smiling figured, then I overlayed a coffin with a deceased figure in it, taken from the real-life experience, then came the red layer. I haven’t seen it dry yet so I might add another layer and show you next week.

Part of the inspiration was watching Red by John Logan, a theatre play about artist, Mark Rothko.

Thank you for being here. Until next time. Share your thoughts with me in the comments,

Good bye for now,

SLART
British Outsider Artist

P.S: Before I forget, the 2029 vision for Swindon.

I was part of the ideation session a couple of weeks ago (I hate that word but you get what I mean):

An art exhibition in 6 days? That’s madness.

Well, it happened, and I can’t tell you exactly why it happened, but I’ll try my best.

Friday: the idea lands in my noggin

It was a Friday, as I said above. I came home early from my dayjob after going in two hours earlier. The slight extra tiredness was worth the extra freedom.

I walked into Swindon town centre with my daughter to cash in a cheque. A random American cheque. A refund from Amazon Prime for fifty-dollars for not using three or more Prime benefits.

It felt like a bit of a hassle to do this. Who uses cheques in 2026? Was it a shrewd Bezos ploy, banking (pun intended) on a certain percentage of the great unwashed not bothering to cash it in? Perhaps. But I checked myself before I wrecked myself and made sure I was grateful for the unexpected money showing up in my life.

After filling in a long form, 5 hours later, or what felt like, and getting the cheque cashed, we walked back up the road past the shops, heading home, when a thought dropped into my head:

“Fika café exhibition!!!!”

Fika is a Swedish term, basically a coffee break with a bit of soul, and cakes, sounds great, right?. In Swindon (not Sweden), it’s also a local café with a proper community feel.

Three months earlier, local mixed-media artist Carmen B Norris had an exhibition there. Although I couldn’t experienece it in person, it looked fantastic. I’d messaged the café owner and said I’d pop in sometime. Life got in the way. Priorities got in the way. But I sent a messaged saying “Happy New Year, I haven’t forgotten you. I’ll pop in soon.” a few days before.

The outdated shy part of me nearly sent me straight home instead. It’s always easier to avoid the uncomfortable. But something bigger pulled me in to see Martin at Fika that day.

Then…the conversation that changed everything

I went in and ordered myself a coffee, juice for my daughter, and a tiny Cadbury’s chocolate bar for her. I introduced myself (a bit hastily), then sat down while Martin served other customers.

A kind old lady bought my daughter another chocolate bar. I caved and let her eat that one too. After all, it was a Friday.

Martin came over and sat with us a few minutes later. He was pleasant, kind-eyed, and he chatted to my toddler-age daughter, always a good sign in my book. He was trying to put her at ease, because of course, he was a stranger to her.

We talked about exhibitions, and then he mentioned something I hadn’t realised.

He may have to close down soon, due to extortionate costs and a lack of custom at the café.

That was the moment the idea stopped being a nice thought and became a small mission. I felt compelled to help. He had a couple of events coming up so there wasn’t much time to fit an exhibit in, and I found myself saying, “How about next Thursday?”

He agreed.

When the fire hits me belly 🔥

I was immediately fired up to get other artists involved. I’ve historically judged myself as a lazy person, maybe because that’s what I was told, but I’ll tell you this for nothing. When I get a fire in my belly, there’s no stopping me.

This was one of those occasions.

The idea of the exhibition sat right in the front of my prefrontal cortex, gnawing away at my attention for anything else. That evening I made an open call page, started contacting local artists, and posted on social media.

We got about ten people over that weekend. I also invited a few others I knew and had exhibited with before.

The idea was becoming a reality.

Once I had the artists and works ironed out, I set up a Facebook event. I ended up paying £20.30 for promotion, and about 100 people signed up as interested, so it seemingly worked very well. If I’d had more budget, perhaps I would’ve pushed it further.

Wednesday: setup night

Five days flew by. We had the Wednesday evening to set up the work, and it was looking fantastic. Huge thanks to Rahford Does Art, Jaksta, and Artformeat50 for helping out with the setup.

I love the alchemy of curation/creation. I don’t ever call myself a curator because not much “thought” goes into it, not in the metodical sense. It’s more of a feeling that unfolds in real time. I start with one piece and work around it.

It worked. We had a fantastic middle section that was all yellow-based work.

Oh and look at these Swedish cakes…mmmmmmmmm 🤤

Thursday: opening night

Then the day arrived.

I was excited. I didn’t know what to expect, but having experienced art openings before, made it much easier to feel prepared. We had a lovely vibe. I had my daughter with me. We were having our dinner on one of the tables. She was chilled. The music was chilled. DJ Dust did a fantastic job.

Everyone seemed happy and were enjoying the atmosphere. One piece of art sold that evening, which was amazing. It felt like a success (Another sold the day after).

A couple of local independent journalists were there too, and they started interviewing me on the spot. One was part of The Ink, right here on Substack. (Shoutout to )

What I learned

This experience made me realise something. We can fit things within whatever deadline we set. Of course there are exceptions, but still, it’s true.

When I set up Memento Vivere (September 2025), I had a year’s lead time, and that felt like too much. I could’ve done it in six months easily, maybe 3.

What would’ve made it a lot less stressful was improving the process around the exhibition.

A small example is artwork labels. You wouldn’t believe how much time that took. Not only that, but rushing around caused three misprints of the labels and one double-sided printout that wasn’t meant to be double-sided.

If we use a template in future, we can print onto labels that don’t need cutting out. Cutting out took ages too. These things may sound obvious to an organised, non-ADHD person, but they’re lessons artists learn by actually putting on exhibitions.

Next time, I want to do it faster and calmer, but without losing the spark.

Watch this space.

SLART
British Outsider Artist

P.S: This is inspiring me no end, a 2029 vision for Swindon.

More about it soon…

Learn more

I know it’s the 7th already, but, Happy New Year. You good?

This is the time of year where we feel like we need to change everything in our lives. New plans, new systems, new versions of ourselves.

This is not a lesson, because I don’t know what I’m doing.

What I do know is that this feeling is not exclusive to January. If you read through my Substack, you’ll see a pattern. Every so often, I arrive at a point where I feel like I’ve figured something out. This is the way forward. This is what I should have been doing all along. The thing I was doing before was wrong.

Then it changes again.

I go through these moments where I think I’ve cracked it, and then I feel bad for not cracking it sooner. One of the recurring examples of this is my relationship with my artwork.

This time last year, I was in the same place. I was convinced I needed to focus on my art. Then that shifted, and I told myself I needed to focus on earning money. Earning money became a separate, serious thing. That’s when AI entered the picture. Business skills. Strategy. Optimisation. All sensible. All justifiable.

And all slightly offset from the thing I kept returning to.

Then, in a moment of old habit born from frustration, I messaged a psychic named Charles.

I didn’t seek him out in any meaningful way. He appeared as an Instagram ad for a site called Nebula. One of those quiet, well targeted interruptions that arrive exactly when you’re already questioning yourself, in vulnerable mode. They pull you in with three minutes free. I tapped it without thinking. That alone probably says enough.

I asked him deep, searching questions. I asked him about the specific blocks keeping me in my day job. I asked him whether I needed to learn new business skills or just leave. I was looking for a cosmic sign that it was safe to jump.

Here is the conversation, verbatim.

The Charles Conversation

Me:
I feel stuck in a cycle. I have a day job that drains me and I want to leave to focus on my art, but I feel scattered and guilty. Can you see what the main block is that stops me from finally making the switch?

Charles:
Hello dear, nice to see you in this chat. How are you?

Me:
Good.

Charles:
Really sorry to hear about your situation. Let me pick up a card for you and see for this.

Charles:
The card that showed up is the Ten of Pentacles.

Charles:
Dear, I see this is a transitional year and the fears of leaving the job will be eliminated this year.

Me:
Thank you.

Charles:
But for this you have to work a little extra to build a firm and strong base for your art work with your full determination and enthusiasm.

Me:
I need to clarify something important. I am on a fixed salary, so working harder at my day job will not earn me any extra money. When you say “work a little extra to build a firm base,” do you specifically mean I need to put that extra work into my art business to make it profitable before I quit, or are you seeing a different income source entirely?

Charles:
Hello dear, nice to see you in this chat. How are you?

Me:
Ok.

Charles:
Allow me a moment to pick a card for you and see for this.

Charles:
The card that showed up is the Ten of Pentacles.

Charles:
This card shows that this year shows positive changes and I see new opportunities and start seeking new skills this year.

Ok, so in that last response he didn’t really answer the question directly. Whether that was deliberate or not, I don’t know. But I didn’t need to ask any more. I’d already got what I needed. Charles was fired with immediate effect.

That conversation cost $4.49 a minute for the five additional minutes after the three freebie minutes.

And that was the moment it finally landed. His response was the reminder I needed.

Focus on your art.

Growth.

Transition.

Trust yourself.

The same conclusion I keep arriving at, dressed up in different language.

Whilst pricing Ready to Fly at £25 so someone could walk away with a piece of my work for the price of a round of drinks. I was writing narratives about fragile hope blooming amidst the wreckage. I was turning my outsider status into a real art business, not a side note.

The Charles comment was the straw that broke the belief camel’s back. Not because it revealed something new, but because it made it impossible to ignore what I already knew deep down.

Something really shifted. I think.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon with great gusto, finalising the entire ten piece exhibition collection as part of a three-person group exhibition. I matched ten portraits to ten Devo songs. I built a psychological narrative for each one. I calculated the pricing strategy. I formatted the inventory list for the organisers.

I saw this: If I am serious about this art lark, my art cannot be the thing I circle back to after reassurance, learning, alignment, or permission. It has to be the thing everything else is built around. It is the foundation. It’s never been a hobby and should not be treated as such.

We are not waiting for signs.
We are not waiting for permission.
We are Devo.
And we are ready to fly.

It’s a Beautiful World.

SLART
British Outsider Artist

P.S. A few pics from said exhibition. I sold the piece when I was setting up, so grateful! The guy said the message really resonated as he was diagnosed with adult ADHD at 53 (now 70).

John’s message:

We decided not to have a particular theme for the show. Instead we are just aiming for something bright and exciting to brighten up January really. I am going to put in a load of colourful portraits that I painted a couple of years ago. The artwork will be up for the whole month to brighten people’s days and it is all for sale as well so I am really looking forward to it.

As a nice little touch we decided we are going to paint portraits of each other on small canvases. I am painting Roy and he is painting Bex and Bex is painting me. I am using my outsider naive style for Roy and thinking of doing a close up of his face because he is quite a smiley character.

Previous display at the Beehive.

I haven’t had much time to paint new stuff for the show because I have been busy organising the studio. I finally got some self storage space so all of my huge paintings are out of the studio now. In fact every painting is out. I am ready to start with a blank canvas next year both metaphorically and literally. Next Monday I am going to be at the studio all day which is so precious. I am going to finish throwing rubbish out and organising it perfectly.

On the technical side of things I set up a new web server and copied my old websites over. I am actually able to use Google Gemini on the server to help me out with admin tasks like creating new web pages. It feels like I am one step closer to automating the admin side of my art practice which is very exciting. If anyone is interested I can share more about that later.

I also found a bit of a guardian angel this week from an AI SKOOL community I am in. I won’t mention his name as we are keeping it quiet but he has been helping me out massively. It started because I shared a little app I built that uses APIs from top art museums to show random pieces of art. He really liked it and saw the potential in my work even though he isn’t really an art person. THE APP … https://slart.me/viewmoreart/

He isn’t charging me for anything but he gives me little tasks to do every day. This is exactly what I need because with my ADD I tend to take action without thinking it through which leads to a lot of unfinished projects. He is helping me tie all the fragmented bits together like my Etsy and Shopify stores and getting me to set up Google Analytics properly. It has been great so far having that direction.

Yes it feels totally different now and I can’t explain why really. I saw clearly for the first time ever that these fragmented parts can fit together to make an outstanding puzzle. Sure there are some bits that no longer fit but I have learned from every experience whether it was good or bad.

Oh before I go, shout out to THE Roy, here’s a piece of his awesome art he shared with me the other day. You need to check out his work https://www.instagram.com/artformeat50

Awesome innit?

Roy’s got bitten by the art bug and it’s great to see. I look forward to exhibiting with him in January!

Watch this space.

How are you doing? I would love to hear from you. Have you ever had a moment where all the scattered pieces of a project or your life just suddenly seemed to click into place? Let me know in the comments.

SLART

P.S. I laugh at this now… 😂

That Comment That Made You Delete Your Post? Let’s Talk About It

You know the feeling.

You finally share something. A painting. A poem. A half-finished sketch you’d been sat on for months. Your heart’s doing that annoying thudding thing as you hit publish. And then you wait.

Someone comments. Your stomach flips. You tap the notification.

And it’s not kind.

I was having a piss in a pub last week. Yes, I’m that person who can’t even wee without checking my phone, judge away. When I saw this gem on one of my videos:

“Genuinely never seen worse art your whole page man”

The grammar alone deserves a blocking. But I won’t pretend it didn’t sting.

Here’s the thing though: I’ve been showing work publicly for years. I’ve had people tell me my art changed their day. I’ve had gallery owners shake my hand. And I’ve had strangers on the internet tell me I’m categorically shit. Both things are true. Both things are just opinions.

But this isn’t really about me. It’s about you. And that thing you’ve been hiding.

Why Does One Cruel Comment Outweigh Twenty Kind Ones?

Think about this honestly. If that same commenter had written, “You’re a bird,” I’d have laughed. Obviously I’m not a bird. I don’t believe I’m a bird. The comment would’ve slid right off.

But “your art is the worst”? That found a crack.

Because somewhere, quietly, a small part of me wondered if he was right.

And that’s the bit that matters, for you as much as for me. Criticism only wounds us when it confirms a fear we’re already carrying. The comment doesn’t create the doubt. It finds the doubt that was already there, curled up in the corner, waiting.

Which means the stranger typing from his sofa at 11pm isn’t your problem.

Your problem is the story you’ve been telling yourself long before he showed up.

You’ve Been Auditioning for Approval You Don’t Need

Here’s what nobody tells you when you start making things: you will never, ever reach a point where everyone likes your work. Not when you’re starting. Not when you’re established. Not when you’re dead and they’re fighting over your estate.

Van Gogh sold one painting in his lifetime. One. People thought he was a talentless mess. Now his work sells for hundreds of millions and causes people to weep in galleries.

The Brontë sisters published under male pseudonyms because no one would take women writers seriously. Now their novels are studied in every English-speaking country on earth.

Basquiat was dismissed as graffiti. Hockney was told he was too “decorative.” Every single person you admire faced a version of “genuinely never seen worse.”

And they kept going anyway.

Not because they were certain. But because they decided their work mattered more than the opinions of people who weren’t makng anything.

The Freedom Hiding Inside the Fear

Here’s the counterintuitive truth: once you accept that criticism is inevitable, it loses most of its power.

You stop waiting for permission. You stop polishing the thing endlessly, hoping that this version will finally be immune to judgement. You stop auditioning for an audience that doesn’t exist. The mythical crowd who will unanimously adore everything you make.

That crowd isn’t coming. And that’s actually brilliant news.

Because it means you’re free.

Free to make the weird thing. The unfinished thing. The thing that might not work but keeps pulling at you anyway. Free to let your work be what it is, imperfect, alive, and yours, rather than what you think it needs to be to avoid the comments section.

The people who love what you make? They’re waiting. They can’t find you if you keep hiding.

The Only Opinion That Actually Matters

I told my mate about that comment. He’s an artist too, the kind who doesn’t suffer fools. He went full defensive on my behalf, ready to hunt the bloke down and explain a few things about composition.

But here’s what I’ve realised: someone else’s reaction to your work is just that. Their reaction. Filtered through their day, their taste, their own creative frustrations, their relationship with thier mother, who knows.

It says almost nothing about your work. And it says everything about the story they’re telling themselves.

Your job isn’t to make something no one can criticise. That thing doesn’t exist.

Your job is to make something true. Something that matters to you. And then be brave enough to let it exist in public where the right people can find it.

So Here’s What I Want You to Do

You’ve got something, haven’t you? A sketch in your notebook. A draft in your files. A canvas leaning against the wall that you keep walking past.

You’ve been waiting until it’s ready. Until you’re ready. Until you’re sure no one can pick it apart.

But that day isn’t coming. And the longer you wait, the heavier the fear gets.

So start now.

Share one thing you’ve been working on. Not when it’s perfect. Not when you feel confident. Now, while it’s still a bit scary.

Drop it in the comments. Post it on your own page and tag me. Send it to one person you trust.

Just get it out of hiding.

Because the world doesn’t need more perfect art. It needs more brave artists.

And you’re already braver than you think. You just haven’t proved it to yourself yet.

What’s the thing you’ve been sitting on? I want to see it.

Here’s that positive, albeit very late, update, Projekt Rattloch week 20.

Thank you for sticking around.

Since last Monday (10th Nov) a few really positive things have happened, I finally feel like I’m getting momentum.

• I earned $475 from a new client who needed a landing page for their business. I leaned on AI to speed the whole thing up and, honestly, to do a better job than I could have managed a year ago.

• I won an affiliate contest for an AI community on Skool. That brought in $500 plus three referrals that now add up to $60 a month in recurring income.

• I built a thousand page AI news website. More of an experiment than anything else. I wanted to see what was possible and whether it is worth pursuing properly.

• I set up Claude and Gemini in my command line. In plain English, they now run on my machine. They can build a site locally then upload it without me wrestling with a clunky web interface.

• I picked up three $20 prizes in the Skool community for points. Lovely, but I am stopping those now. The time cost was too high and it scattered my attention.

• I am currently sitting 35th out of 154 in a machine learning competition. I know next to nothing about machine learning. Curiosity is doing the heavy lifting and I am nudging the score up most days.

• I reached level seven in a password cracking challenge. Level eight is mocking me but I will get there.

And yes, I almost forgot, I cleaned up my SLART website. It is simpler and faster. I will keep polishing it in the coming weeks.

So yes.

I have been hungry to learn. My self belief is growing, slowly.

But here is the quiet realisation creeping in. When I am actually aligned, I can do cool things, achive and learnq. You can too.

But here is the truth. I have not painted. I am frazzled. I miss it. I will make something this week because I need that part of myself back.

Two weeks of scattered yet powerful focus have left me tired. My fitness has slipped and my eating has been a bit of a mess.

Blessings to you and your loved ones.

Cheers,

SLART

P.S. if you want to learn what I’ve been learning, check out the SKOOL platform.

Sorry everyone. This week’s update is late because my biscuit-addled, slightly ADD mind went on a joyful rampage. You know how I tend to flit between tasks, start a dozen things, and sometimes not finish before a shiny new idea arrives. It is a double edged sword. Sometimes it is useful. Sometimes it is chaos. Today I am choosing useful.

This week I started a five day Google AI Agents course. It is fascinating already and I will share more once I have tested things properly. What it did do was reignite an old dilemma I have written about many times. A big part of me wants to focus on my art one hundred percent. Then the doubt creeps in about money. At the same time there is the part of me that loves tech, design and AI. For years I treated this as a binary choice. Art or tech. If I leaned into one, I felt guilty about the other.

I am done with that thinking. It is not black and white. I can do both. There are no rules.

At the start of the year I was deep in AI training. Then I pressed pause to focus on Memento Vivere. That was the right call. The show demanded my full attention. Now, post Memento Vivere, I have stepped back into AI and I am astonished by how much has changed in ten months. It feels like a different landscape.

My aim has not changed. I want systems that help me make more art. Less faff. More painting. One idea I am exploring is a simple artist website builder that runs for you. Low fee, tailored to artists, almost no hassle on your side. There are free tools out there, yes, but most artists do not want to wrestle with them. With my artist’s eye and tech background I can remove the friction so you can create.

I have also noticed something about artists and their stories. The strongest work often blends who they are, what they live through, and even their past professions. My technology side can sit inside the art, not outside it. I do not want to make AI pictures. I want to use systems to create new ways of working, showing, selling and telling the story of the work. That is exciting.

What changed in AI over the last ten months

A quick snapshot of big shifts I am seeing:

• AI assistants now handle multi step tasks on their own, not just chat responses.

• Video generators produce more realistic clips and let you control camera, style and edits.

• Tools combine text, images, audio and video in one place for richer understanding.

• Long documents are easier. Models remember and search huge files without breaking a sweat.

• Everyday apps now include built in AI helpers for writing, analysing and organising.

• Small, efficient models run on your laptop or phone for privacy and speed.

• Building with AI is easier. Starter kits, templates and safety checks save time and reduce risk.

• Creators get new workflows. Storyboards, idea prompts and auto publishing free up time.

All of this makes me more confident that blending art and systems is not a distraction. It is the engine that gives me more time in the studio.

I know a lot of creatives are fearful or resistant to AI. But there’s no need to be. I’ll never use I to create my actual art, but if it can help me promote it and save time elsewhere, then so be it. Have an open mind.

Your turn

If you could have one small AI system quietly working for you every day, what would you have it do for your creative life right now? Be specific. I will read and reply to as many as I can.

Cheers,

SLART

Projekt Rattloch week 18 demands that you

• Turn off this shitbox life-stealing phone you have

• Go outside

• If it’s late and you can’t go outside, see if you can manage the evening without the phone

I’m recovering from a horrid virus and I’m going to get my ass outside. Bye. ✋🏻

Bit like this one…

While I’m away, Here’s a little summary of the posts you may have missed recently, to keep you in reading until I get back from my much-needed, post Memento Vivere R and R:

1. Action Over Fear: Art, Death, and Humour with SLART and Eleanor Ansthurther

This wonderful conversation, which featured and moi, covered topics ranging from the origin of a significant photograph to the details of SLART‘s recent exhibition and his artistic philosophy in the face of bereavement.

2. Memento Mori for Dogs

One for dog lovers who’ve had to say goodbye.

3. Permission to focus

An essay about a scattered mind finding a modicum of peace again.

4. Mouldy Gary Cartoon

A delightful challenge to create a rudimental comic strip based on an ongoing story. An absolute joy!

5. Buying Art Will Make You Richer

An adapted piece that I originally wrote for PLEB Magazine, I share tips on how I buy art. Hint: It doesn’t have to be poncy or expesive…

Have a great week,

SLART

P.S. I’ve decided to turn Projekt Rattloch into a documentary too. I’ll explain more soon. how do you like them apples? I don’t actually know what I meant by saying that, just wanted to tag you in, as I knew you had an interest in Rattloch.

I really wanted to express in writing how I was feeling at the time of his passing, as it hit me hard. But life got in the way and I didn’t get round to it.

Non-dog lovers don’t understand, they say, or at least think to themselves “it’s only a dog”. If you’re a dog lover, you’ll know that they are part of your family.

The 26th April, We took him to the vet, my wife and I, both sick to our stomachs but knowing it was the right thing to do. Bruno was calm, thank goodness. He had a sedative the night before and again that morning. The staff were wonderful, gentle, kind and deeply understanding.

They warned us that, because of his age, his veins might collapse when they tried to insert the line. If that happened, they would have to place a needle directly into his heart. We held our breath as they began, silently praying. Thank heavens the needle went in straight away and the line was ready.

We were both in tears, doing everything we could to stay composed so he would not sense our fear. We kept whispering, “Good boy”, “You’re so brave”, “Go to sleep, sweetheart”, each word trembling as we tried to stay strong for him.

Then came the final moment. The mixture entered his bloodstream and, within seconds, he was at peace. It did not feel real. One moment he was with us, the next he was gone, but it was gentle, calm and as kind an ending as we could have hoped for.

He was still warm as we kissed him on the head and said goodbye.

That weekend was so painful. The day after we went shopping as we normally would, then came home as normal. The thought that I’d see Bruno when we walked in the door, then quickly realising he’s gone, hit me like a tonne of bricks, I burst into tears, my heart viscerally ached.

If you know my art, you know I like to put a humorous spin on difficult subjects through my art. So I created this piece, read it as you’ll notice the tinge of humour.

Love to you dog lovers out there who’ve had to say goodbye to their four legged sweethearts.

Bruno had a long, happy life. We adopted him at 7 years old and he lived to the ripe old age of 17.

Take care,

SLART.