Rachael and Lauren answer more of your questions while making fun chaotic detours along the way!
Rachael and Lauren answer more of your questions while making fun chaotic detours along the way!
Episode Link Mentions:
The transcript for this episode can be found here!
Rachael: Welcome to Chaotic Creatives, a show about embracing the chaos that comes from living a creative life.
Lauren: We're your hosts, two self-proclaimed Chaotic Creative gals. I'm Lauren Hom, better known as Hom Sweet Hom on the internet. I am a designer, letterer, muralist and most recently, chef.
Rachael: I'm Rachael Renae. I am your internet hype gal and I encourage you to use play to live a creative and more fulfilling life.
Lauren: Welcome to part two of us answering listener questions.
Rachael: Yeah. Thank you for submitting them. Let's kick it off with a vulnerable share from an audience member. So, thank you. They say, "Something that holds me back to being truly a chaotic creative is the fear of what others think of my weirdness and comparing my work to others who are super talented, especially on social media. As you both have creative careers and are so authentically yourselves, which I admire," thank you, "I wonder have you always been like that and what your own journey has been with all of that." Great question. Big question. Thank you for sharing.
Lauren: Do you want to go first? I just got a bug bite and I'm so itchy.
Rachael: Oh, you have to scratch it. Absolutely.
Lauren: That's where my brain went.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: So upset.
Rachael: I'm pretty bit up as well, and I don't know what it's from. Okay. That's not us answering your question.
Lauren: Sorry.
Rachael: No. No, it's perfect. It's embracing our weirdness. We're pickers.
Lauren: Yeah. I feel like I appreciate that people think I'm my authentic weird self online, and to some extent I am. But I don't know if anyone can truly be 100% authentic, and that shouldn't be the goal on social media either. It's all, whatever you feel like sharing is authentic, anything you share is you.
Rachael: Yeah. But I think that you and I both do a good job of showing up as our real selves, and maybe we may not be sharing all of ourselves, but what we do share is true. Whereas I think in influencer culture, and I fully recognize that we both fall into that category like influencers-
Lauren: 100%.
Rachael: ... but it can be very... I don't follow anyone like this, I'm sure you don't either because we curate our feeds to be what we want it to be, but I feel like the potential is there for people to be really inauthentic, even sharing a lot of their lives. So, yeah. I mean, we're both little freaks and we show some of that online and there's also more IRL, and people see so much more of that even just watching this video or listening to the podcast, hearing it a bit more than just snippets of a still photo or a 10 second reel. Does that make sense, what I'm saying?
Lauren: Yeah, totally. I mean, yeah. My fridge has jizz on it, so I get that. I think because I started sharing on the internet just like I would share whatever I thought my friends would like to see, and what I felt like sharing. I've always been a silly kind of gal. I never really thought much about it. There are some things that I've made that I know, like the fridge, or my project peeing cuisine, anything in a more taboo category like sex I think, or even things like cursing, everything is risqué to somebody. I think my litmus test is usually, would my closest friends find this funny, and what's the temp check there? I try to use a small sample size as what I'm going to share, because at a certain point, especially with audience sizes like yours or mine, or even if you have 500 followers, that's way more people than you know in real life.
Human interactions were not meant to scale the way that social media has allowed them to, and so using an IRL small sample size as the filter and then being like, people are adults, they can leave if they want, they can stay if they want. If anything, sharing what I want to share, being my authentic weird self is a filter for keeping people around who are like, "Hell, yeah. This is my vibe. I'm into this. We could be friends in real life." Then people who are clutching their pearls or who are like, "That's so weird. I don't get it," even just senses of humor vary, they can leave. One thing I have to remind myself is, I don't follow everybody, I don't like everybody, so people reserve the right to not like me or follow me and that's okay. You'd rather have a tighter knit, smaller group of people who are similar to you and who like the things you like and who appreciate you for you, not a version of yourself that you're trying to be palatable, than a huge audience of people who just like you for an inauthentic version of yourself.
Rachael: Yeah. That's a great answer, and I know you asked me to answer first and then I turned it back around-
Lauren: It's all good.
Rachael: ... answer. So, go ahead and scratch that bug bite while I gab. If you're not watching the video, Lauren is removing layers of skin right now. I think in terms of this question, I absolutely struggled with the same thing, thinking about what version of weird was acceptable, and it was never like, "Oh, I want to be more of a freak than I'm showing up as." It was less like that thought process and more along the lines of, I don't know who I am for me personally, and so I had little snippets of who I wanted to be and of course we're always growing and changing and that's lovely, and I never want to not grow and change. But I think that for me and my journey of fully accepting myself as I am and who I want to be, came from when I started to experiment with my personal style. Because I was having so much fun and it was very clear to me who, in my real life and online, didn't like that loud expression of self.
I offer questions, reflection questions in my Dress for Yourself course about this specifically, because if for example, you put on one of our outfits, bright colors, wearing tennis shoes with a dress and a bright orange color that is probably not for my skin tone according to style rules that were made up by somebody, and someone is like, "Oh, why are you wearing that?" Or, "Why are you so dressed up?" Or, "Are you going to wear that out?" When people say that, it's them projecting of course their own fear of people judging them, but it's also not accepting you as 100% who you are. My perfect people in my life, my friends and my family, know that I'm going to show up in a weird outfit and it doesn't bother them.
I think that that can be true with your creative practice expression, whatever you're making, doing the thing that truly lights you up, you should be doing the thing for that reason. The process of making that thing that you're really excited about is why you're doing it, not for other people to observe and consume what you make, although that is often a bonus and obviously important-
Lauren: It's a byproduct.
Rachael: Yeah. If you're trying to be a living artist that is making artwork for consumption of course. But in order to get to that point, you have to make the weird shit that's in your brain for yourself.
Lauren: If there's no weird shit in your brain, that's totally fine too. That's okay. I think another byproduct too is when you make the stuff that you actually want to make and you share it, share the things you actually want to share, people can sniff out pretty easily when you're excited about something and you're not excited about something. So, it makes marketing infinitely easier when you're just like, "Hey guys. I'm so jazzed about this." Versus, coming up with marketing copy that's like copy and paste templates where you're changing things and you're just like... We all know the marketing where you're like, "I've just got to get it out there. Hopefully someone sees this," versus, "I can't wait to tell you..."
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: I think that that's the only way forward for a sustainable creative career, is to make work that feels like you, that you're excited about, because it's really hard to fake excitement about work, I think.
Rachael: Yeah, absolutely.
Lauren: Yeah. To your point about your perfect people will support you and be excited for you. There are people who it's not... It's their issue if they're like, "Oh, I don't like that she's sharing that. Why is she saying it this way? Why is she wearing that?" That's a them problem, and they can leave or they can be toxic and silently judge and whatever. It doesn't affect. As long as they're not leaving mean comments, it's fine. That's what blocking is for anyways.
Rachael: Absolutely. Yeah.
Lauren: I feel like this is maybe a good time to bring up... I can talk about this. I told you this a couple of weeks ago. I blocked my entire family on Instagram, only because I think a lot of people, like a lot of my students, a lot of my friends over the course of the last five or six years have expressed that one hurdle to really feeling like they can be themselves online is the fact that their families are watching them. Depending on what kind of family you grew up in, with every post that you're making, if you're trying to push the envelope a little bit or be more yourself, worrying about is your mom going to text you, "Why did you share that?" That's terrible energy to bring to social media, and also it's not fun. It sucks the fun out of sharing.
My family is super supportive of what I do, but over the last couple of years, maybe because I've been so visible online for so long, it feels like my family is coming to work with me, because what I share online is so deeply intertwined with my livelihood that I don't need my dad texting me saying, "There's a spelling error on this page on your website. Why did this post only get this many likes?" It's not helpful for me anymore. It used to be fun and it was just like, "Ha ha. My dad's so silly," and it became crippling fear of, it's not necessary for my dad to come to work with me.
Rachael: Right. Your dad isn't reviewing documents that your brother's creating.
Lauren: No.
Rachael: I don't know if your brother creates a document, that felt like a really generic thing to say. I'm like, he probably does.
Lauren: But, yeah.
Rachael: Spreadsheets probably.
Lauren: I guess to person's question too, a little bit of unsolicited advice. If there are people you're worried about...
Rachael: I don't think it's unsolicited, it's literally we asked them to send us questions and we're answering them.
Lauren: Yeah. I think we've talked about this a lot on this podcast, about you are in the driver's seat, you are the creative director of your own life. We have to curate our own experiences. Consuming media, existing on the internet, and that also means who gets to consume our content as well to some extent. Yeah, sure, my dad could make a burner account and maybe he already has. But I think that we're allowed to curate our online experience in a way that is the most conducive to us being able to get our art out there. If you feel like you can't be yourself online because certain people are watching, you can hide your stuff from them. That's okay. Whatever is going to be the most conducive for you to share your authentic self is what you should be doing as an artist, I think.
Rachael: I agree. As a human, back to the point of, if how you're showing up in real life bothers people, you need to get new people. That's easier said than done, but I think the more that you can reflect on and embrace the things that excite you in your life, whether... I remember one time I wore a T-shirt and a skirt, and I've had multiple men that I've dated be like, "Why are you so dressed up?" It's like, "It's a T-shirt and a skirt, and this is my creative expression." But I didn't have the confidence back then to know that and to be able to say anything about it. I was just like, "I just like this. Sorry I'm not chill and cool and wearing jeans."
Lauren: Being chill is overrated.
Rachael: Yeah. I'm not chill.
Lauren: Performing a chill person, no. That's fine. Everyone's chill in some way, but everyone's not chill in other ways. What I was going to tell you, I completely forgot to tell you when you mentioned being dressed up. When Kristle and I were at the Khruangbin concert, we were waiting for the show to go on and there was a couple sitting in front of us in the row in front of us, and she was swiping through Instagram stories. I was like, "Oh, my God. That's Rachael." We were watching someone watch your Instagram story, and we tried to take a picture, but it went away too fast.
Rachael: Oh, my gosh.
Lauren: It was the outfit though, where you were dressed like a Hidden Valley ranch bottle.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: With the big blue-
Rachael: Bow. I almost wore it, I bought a pink one too. Almost wore it today, and then I was like, "It's hot as hell."
Lauren: I was like, what a meta experience to watch someone watch my friend.
Rachael: I hope she enjoyed it.
Lauren: Yes, it's great.
Rachael: I love that. Thank you for sharing. I guess on that note, let's move on. I feel so passionately about that particular question about showing up authentically, because I think that I subjected myself to lot of societal expectations for many years in my life. I am really happy that I took the time to explore my creative interests in clothes, in quilting, in ceramics, because in doing those activities that had always excited me, but I felt intimidated to try, I was able to find who I wanted to be and have become this.
Lauren: You've got to give yourself permission to try the things you're curious about.
Rachael: Yeah. So, I would say the same message that we've said in previous episodes like, follow your fun, follow your curiosity and try to not... Easier said than done, but you don't have to compare. There's truly enough space for everyone.
Lauren: Oh, yeah. There was that part of the question about comparing yourself to other people.
Rachael: Other super talented people.
Lauren: On the internet. Listen, everyone made shitty work at first, and your favorite artists, the incredible work that you're seeing them produce, they're probably going to hate in a couple of years. Everyone's their own worst critic.
Rachael: I would say, if it's inciting bad feelings about your own work, don't follow them. They may make good work, or follow them on Pinterest, where you're not seeing it every day. There are people that I mute when it sparks some jealousy in me and I'm like, "Why am I jealous? Oh, because they're living their life in this way and I'm not there yet," or something. I'll mute them because you don't have to be constantly reminded that you're not there yet.
###
Rachael: Okay, next question. Great question. Thank you for submitting that. I hope we helped. "What's been the most successful way you've found to meet collaborators?"
Lauren: Fun.
Rachael: Did we do an origin story? Did we talk about it?
Lauren: I think we talked about this in the first episode of how-
Rachael: You're right.
Lauren: ... we met. But I was curious in this question and someone else had something in a similar vein about networking.
Rachael: "How do you network..." We can answer them both at the same time. "How do you network without having things feel shallow but rather making genuine connections?"
Lauren: Yes. I think one of the reasons networking gets such a bad rap, because people show up with this energy of, "Got to promote my business. What can I get from you? What can I..." And so that energy is not the best energy to come in with.
Rachael: Very man at the park energy.
Lauren: Exactly. So, to me, some of the best collaborators, even future clients, even just creative friends like support systems, these were friendships that then turned professional. Oftentimes, I tell the story sometimes where I painted a mural/installation for... Refinery29 used to do this event called 29 Rooms in New York, where they would do these branded activations.
Rachael: Is Refinery29 still around?
Lauren: I have no idea. I think I might've aged out of it, the same way I haven't stepped foot in an Urban Outfitters in a very, very long time.
Rachael: Sure. It's full circle fully, but I haven't either. But I have seen some reels of people our age going into Urban Outfitters and it's the same clothes that we wore in seventh grade. It's like, "Why?" Which gives me a chuckle.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: You painted 29 rooms?
Lauren: Yes. I got that project because I was going to go to a Halloween party one year with my girlfriends. They all bailed the last minute. I'm sitting in my apartment in New York already dressed like a cheeseburger.
Rachael: Incredible.
Lauren: I'm like, "Well, I'm going to feel sillier if I take this all off and stay in, I may as well go." I knew the hostess, but I didn't know anybody else. I was like, "Oh, I really don't want to do this, but I'm already dressed like a cheeseburger. Okay."
Rachael: Amazing. Good for you. Go to your crowd there.
Lauren: Yeah. I go to this Halloween party alone. I go say hi to one of the hostesses, Jilly. It's her and her five roommates in this big loft. I start talking with one of her other roommates, Dreya, and we hit it off. We're chatting. She works for Refinery29, and long story short, within a couple of months I get an email from her being like, "Hey. We met at this party. We're doing this event. I think you'd be perfect for this." So, that was an example of going to a social event, not with a networking purpose, but showing up as yourself, forging genuine connections because you're genuinely going to have fun.
Kristle and I were talking about this earlier. Even the guy approaching in the park, why does it feel so shitty to be hit on by random men in public? It's because you're like, "Sir, I'm just at the hardware store trying to buy some nails. This is not why I came here." Whereas I think social gatherings can feel a little more organic because you're all there to relax, have fun, connect.
That's what meetups are good for. That's what art classes can be good for, just side-by-side hanging out and then conversations naturally arise, versus the forced conversation of like, "Hi, what do you do?" At a networking event, "Here's my card." I think that some of the best networking that I've done has just been making friends. If you approach it like trying to make friends who... In the same way we make friends, do we have similar interests? Do we have similar senses of humor?
Rachael: Absolutely.
Lauren: Do we like to spend time doing the same things? It's a great way to network.
Rachael: I mean you have been subjected to this, but I'd love to ask really weird conversation starting questions, which we talked about in a previous episode.
Lauren: Yeah. Show your weird early on.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: That's a good filter.
Rachael: Ask them if they would eat shit every day for $500,000, or we have some others that aren't quite so abrasive. But truly show you're weird early on. I think go in with a sense of, I want to make... I love the idea of just like, I want to make a friend. I'm here for the connection, not for the business opportunity. I am trying to think of all of the collaborations that I've done. Truly, it's been me reaching out to people because I'm excited about their work or who they are. I reached out to you because I was like, "Oh, my God. Lauren Hom is going to be in my city. I have to talk to her." I had something to offer in the sense of, "Let me show you around or send you my map," or whatever, and I wasn't trying to get you to teach me anything. I just wanted to connect, because I thought you were a cool person. That has happened. It's an easy thing for it to have happened on the internet when you just start engaging with someone's work because you're inspired by it and you start chatting.
I remember, during the pandemic, I relearned how to quilt from Tuesday Bassen. Tuesday was sharing how to make a quilt, step-by-step instructions, what to buy, everything. I was like, "I need this." I followed along. I made her quilt, followed the quilt pattern, followed and engaged. Over the course of many years, chatted on the internet here and there. I actually got to meet up with her last week in real life, and I feel like we're pals and I would love to go visit her. A networking opportunity is a time to make an initial first impression of like, "Hey, I'm a human." Like you said, show your weird at first and maybe come up with a couple of silly little questions.
I saw somebody at the ceramic studio that I have known in the craft fair circuit in Detroit for a long time. Instead of asking me, "How's it going?" Because of course, that's the first thing that comes out of our mouths, mine too. She was like, "How's your week been?" It was just slightly phrased differently or, "What's your favorite part of the week so far?" Just asking that question like, what are you most looking forward to tomorrow or in the next month? Asking a question like that, if the other person is interested in it being a business conversation, they can say, "Oh, I'm launching this product at this time," but it also gives someone an opportunity to be human.
Lauren: You could say, I'm looking forward to the leftovers in my fridge.
Rachael: Yeah. Then you get talking about food or you have some silly... You learn something about someone and their leftover preferences.
Lauren: I think before we move on to the next question, in an online context, I think just being a fan of someone, like genuinely.
Rachael: I was going to circle back to the first part of that question, the most successful way you found to meet collaborators.
Lauren: Being a fan. But not a creepy fan, just being-
Rachael: Just a supporter.
Lauren: Being enthusiastic about someone's work. If you have similar interests, trying to connect on a couple of points that you have in common, I think is great. Especially if you're in the same industry or you specialize in the same thing. The communities are relatively small.
Rachael: I think you have to remember that, it's just people on the other side of it. I have so many people that I would call digital friends, that I've never actually met up with in-person, but that I feel comfortable asking questions to on the internet or gabbing with about a particular topic, because we just have rapport because it's been like me being, "This is really beautiful. I'm so impressed with this." Or asking a question about a technique in a very pleasant way.
Lauren: Leaving compliments.
Rachael: Leaving compliments, truly.
Lauren: Everyone could use a compliment.
Rachael: We all love validation.
Lauren: Oh, absolutely. Genuinely being excited about someone else's work, being enthusiastic.
Rachael: If you're going to be in their city, just send a message and be like, "Hey, I know you probably already have plans or you're busy, but would love to take you for a coffee." Never say, "Pick your brain," please. But just say, "Would love to gab." That, I have met so many people in real life because of that, just internet rapport that has turned into friendship. So, yeah. I think that boils down to, try to make a friend. Don't try to make a connection.
Lauren: Yeah. Think about networking as friends, looking for friends.
Rachael: Yeah. We are just about out of time. Is that correct? So, let's wrap up with one final silly question. "What's your go-to creative snack?"
Lauren: Oh, this one was left by my friend, Kara. Hi Kara. I do remember this one. Oh, was it what we like to snack while creating?
Rachael: I think so. That's how I'm interpreting that question.
Lauren: I see. As of late, I've been really into making frozen chocolate covered bananas, and just gnawing on them. It's gotten to the point though, where I'm eating three bananas a day and it's a little bit too much. Because I'll make a tray of them, but then I know the trays in there. I haven't packed them up yet. I just cut a banana in half, stick a chopstick up one and then dip it in chocolate. So, I'm really into making frozen treats.
Rachael: So, it's not like a bite. You're not doing slices of banana dipped in chocolate.
Lauren: This is like popsicle.
Rachael: Cool.
Lauren: I'm really into making frozen pops right now. I recently recreated a homemade, slightly healthier version of those strawberry shortcake ice cream bars.
Rachael: I would be honored to try one.
Lauren: I would give you one if I hadn't eaten them all. Yeah. Because it's so hot here right now, frozen, frozen treats. I want to make like a pina colada pop.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: I really do believe sometimes that I was put on this earth to drink pina coladas and eat papaya salads.
Rachael: I agree with you. Remember that insane pina colada we had at the water park conference we took you to?
Lauren: With the extra shot of rum on top? Or at the bottom?
Rachael: At the bottom, because the straw, the first sip was just straight rum. But then the rest was good.
Lauren: What's your go-to creative snack?
Rachael: Mine is not that detailed of an answer. I'm sure as hell not making anything. I feel like I always have a couple of bevs. I usually have a sparkling water. If it's cold, I'll have a tea and then just regular water. But when I come up for air, I'm just such a child. My snack lately has been just cut up apples with peanut butter.
Lauren: Delicious.
Rachael: I also recently have gotten back into cottage cheese with-
Lauren: That's a thing now. I see a lot of cottage cheese.
Rachael: My mom has been a cottage cheese person my entire life.
Lauren: It seems like an eighties diet food.
Rachael: But it is a good little protein snack with...
Lauren: Fruit?
Rachael: I have been... Yeah. This morning I had some with mango. Also nectarine with honey, but then you can also make it savory with cherry tomatoes and balsamic.
Lauren: It's like a ricotta-
Rachael: Basically.
Lauren: Like an unfancy ricotta.
Rachael: Yeah. It's basically just liquid cheese, which you know I love in various forms.
Lauren: Absolutely. Spoonable cheese.
Rachael: Yeah. So, that is what... I don't know if that's an ADHD thing, but I get really focused on one type of food and then I eat it until I'm really sick of it. So, I'm in my cottage cheese phase right now.
Lauren: I do that with songs that I like and outfits. Yeah. Absolutely. I didn't realize that was an ADHD thing.
Rachael: I don't know if it is. I just assume everything is now that I-
Lauren: I think it is because I made a video years ago of me wearing the different combinations of the same skirt and shirt.
Rachael: Oh, yeah. I remember that.
Lauren: Four different skirts that are just the same skirt, different colors, and then four different tops, same top different patterns.
Rachael: You hunted them down.
Lauren: Yeah. I did every combination because I loved the silhouette and I like the patterns. A lot of people commented being like, "This is very... My neurodivergent brain really loves this because you hyper fixate on, this is my thing."
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: I didn't realize that.
Rachael: ADHD coded.
Lauren: Yeah. Once I find a thing I like, I just stick to it. But I love cottage cheese and fruit for you. It's also what you mentioned with the apples and peanut butter too, from my chef analysis, it's quick to prepare. Which I think is really important for home cooking, because a lot of people's... The barrier to entry for cooking or the hill that's too hard to get over is, "Ugh, I have to get so many dishes out. What do I even make?" To have a couple go-to snacks that you're like, "This is my quick and easy," is a great way to nourish yourself and find some enjoyment in food when it's not so hard.
Rachael: Absolutely. Love that.
Lauren: Gives you little treats.
Rachael: Thank you for listening. We will likely do another round of question answering probably in another post, but we will go through and answer the ones we didn't answer this time, with text in comments. Wow, that wasn't clear at all. Did that make-
Lauren: Questions will be answered one way or another.
Rachael: Be answered, yes. On that note, thank you for being pod listeners. We'll talk to you soon.
Lauren: Bye.