{107} Welcoming the Website
I never imagined for Phantasm to become a website when I started it, but now it's come!
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Phantasm initially began as a low maintenance hobby on Instagram, serving as an exposition project that allowed me to be creative and personal, yet also anonymous. I remain mostly anonymous as of this writing, but I expect for that to change a little with this website expansion. And it will be less low maintenance, but that's ok too.
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Having stepped away from the gallery twice before, it's now become so integral to my lifestyle and sustenance that I'm fully committed to it for my life; I feel encouraged by its possibilities, for its posterity. These are the reasons why the gallery is stepping into an additional form as a website. Too, because I'm aware of how annoying Phantasm is on Instagram. The way it's constructed in its current form doesn't jive with the scrolling nature of Instagram, but I like it for its abrasive uniqueness on the platform and so it'll remain.
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Creating a website for the gallery wasn't done for its own sake of legitimizing, but because I wanted it to further legitimize artists too. And for me that meant not only legitimizing them with the respect of sharing their artwork unaltered and with proper credit, but legitimizing their worth as an artist who selflessly (in part, at least) shares their artwork on the world wild web.
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Here I was, sharing their artwork without asking for their permission, and all they received in return came in the form of likes and comments and shares. Well I'm firm now on believing that artists are worthy of receiving something more real and useful than digital affirmation, because their creations generate real emotions and resonance in the viewer and, for me at least, those are useful—art and that which it elicits can be a salve for the soul.
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Coming to my point now, I believe that artists deserve a royalty payment for the impermissible posting of their artwork. They essentially pass ownership of their artwork to anyone online for nothing in return, and it seems especially unfair to me that many people don't show them respect when staking a claim in newfound ownership of that art by posting it themselves. So here I attempt to right the wrongs of our social media culture, and attempt to influence its future etiquette by paying artists for sharing their work.
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I'm only able to pay artists if there's money to divvy, so with the website I've created a Patreon page where anyone who feels strongly about this too can chip in $1, $2 or $3 a month in exchange for limited-edition merchandise and the option to suggest and vote on curating decisions for the gallery every month. And with that subsidy of money, we can spread respect and legitimacy to the artists we love and appreciate.
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Thank you so much to anyone who's taken any interest in Phantasm over the past three years, to anyone who takes an interest in it from this point on, and a special thank you to @stonebluestudio for collaborating with me and creating these inaugural designs. His statement on these designs can be read below.
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Artist Statement: “When you boil it down to the simplest terms, everything I create is inspired by the organization of nature. I feel like we tend to view the natural world as a kind of wild beast or a pool of entropy. When you look at it closely, though, you see that it’s very structured and organized. This is what draws me to minerals and crystalline forms. You don’t have to look too closely at these to see that principle. My interest in organization extends into space as well. In this work, I’ve taken existing photographs of a variety of crystals and have composited them to create what I call ‘pseudo-galaxies.’ Bringing the smallest examples of organization together with some of the largest emphasizes the idea that there are natural principles that we will never be smart or strong enough to override.”
Stone Blue Studio
For more from the artist, click below: