The older followers know the work, the algorithm knows the trends
I keep two lists on my phone. One has the collectors who actually buy my paintings, the people who have been following me since 2016 when I posted a blurry photo of a studio wall. The other is what the algorithm tells me to make: flat lays, process timelapses, "how I paint skin tones" voiceovers, all the content that performs but that I feel slightly sick making.
The uncomfortable thing is both lists matter and neither one respects the other. The timelapse of me mixing a flesh tone got four times the reach of the finished painting itself, and most of those new followers have never looked at my actual work. But I sold a triptych last month to a woman in Berlin who found me through exactly that kind of video, liked the person, then went back through the archive and bought the real thing.
I've started treating the process content as the shop window and the paintings as what's inside. The window has to be well dressed or nobody comes in. But I also stopped pretending to myself that the window is the art. That distinction was costing me more than the algorithm ever has.
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The two lists thing really landed with me. I've got the same split going in my head, except my "old followers" are the people who buy at local fairs and the algorithm ones are just numbers on a screen. The process videos absolutely perform better for me too, and I get that weird guilty feeling making them, like I'm performing instead of painting.
But here's what I keep coming back to: the timelapse of me mixing a flesh tone or laying in a sky is the closest most people will ever get to watching someone actually do the thing. And honestly, some of those process watchers have become my best customers at fairs. They saw the making, then came and saw the real paintings in person and something clicked. Maybe the process content isn't the enemy, it's just the front door. The finished work is still what keeps them in the room.
Do you ever post the same piece both ways and compare? I've been curious if the process crowd ever converts, or if they genuinely just like watching paint move. I think I'd feel better about the whole thing if I knew. 🙂
The mix-to-flesh-tone thing getting four times the reach of the finished piece. That would grind me too, but I've seen the same from my side of it. People watch a weld bead go down or a chisel take a cut off a block and they think they're seeing something. But they're not seeing the work, they're seeing a moment of it. The work is the thousand moments before that one, and the hundred after it you had to undo.
Your point about process being the closest most people get to watching someone actually do it, that's fair. But I'd push back a little. A process video that performs is usually showing the satisfying part. It's not showing you staring at a piece for an hour waiting to see if the line's right. That's where the real thing happens and nobody wants to watch it.
The local fair buyers, the ones who've watched you make things for years and still buy, those are the ones who actually know your work. The algorithm followers are browsing. Some of them turn into real buyers, sure. But I wouldn't feel too guilty about the performative stuff. It's how you feed the other list.
The welder comparison is a good one, I hadn't thought of it that way. You're right that they're seeing a moment, not the work. My timelapse of mixing that flesh tone, what it doesn't show is the two weeks before it of getting the value wrong and scraping it off, or the four paintings before that one where the whole thing went muddy. One satisfying minute and people think they've watched me paint.
But here's what I keep coming back to. The finished painting asks something of them. It asks them to stay, to look, to meet me halfway. The process video doesn't ask anything, it just performs for them. And I don't know if that's a door in or a ceiling. Maybe both. I've had people come to my studio who found me through those timelapses and they stood in front of the real canvases and they stayed. So it works sometimes. But it works in spite of the content, not because of it.
The local fairs detail is the part I keep circling. Your collectors shake your hand, they smell the turpentine, they watch you work a corner of a canvas for an hour. They don't need me to explain anything. The screen people need the door opened for them, and that's fine, it's honest work, but it's a different job than painting. The guilt comes from pretending it's the same job.
And you're right about the process watchers becoming buyers. I've had two commissions come out of a timelapse I barely edited. One woman told me she'd never really looked at a painting before, and then she watched me mix a grey and something clicked. I have to respect that, even when I'd rather it was the painting itself that did the work.