Table of contents:

1. 1. About Art
2. 2. Building a Locality Social Cloud

About Art

I grew up surrounded by art that nobody was getting rich from. My grandfather’s oil paintings hung in our living room – landscapes with light that seemed to change depending on the time of day. Mom’s massage studio in the converted garage smelled like lavender and always had wind chimes hanging that clinked when clients opened the door. Dad was different. Practical. Sold natural health products to pay the bills, but I’d catch him sometimes staring at Grandpa’s paintings with this look I couldn’t name until I was older. Longing, maybe. “Your grandfather could’ve been in museums,” he told me once. “Turned down some fancy gallery deal in the 80s because they wanted to own his entire portfolio. Said he’d rather sell direct to people who actually connected with the work.” The painting in our hallway of Utah mountains at sunset was Grandpa’s favorite. He refused $15,000 for it from some Silicon Valley guy who wanted it for his vacation home. I think about that a lot lately.

My writing group friend from college, Alison, ghostwrites for some bestselling thriller author now. She’s got an MFA from Iowa and real talent, but the publishing industry chewed her up when she tried to sell her own work. Too literary, they said. Not marketable enough. No clear audience. Now she crafts chapters for a guy who hasn’t written his own books in years but has his name in massive font on airport bookstore displays. Makes decent money – enough for a small apartment in Salt Lake and to pay down her student loans. Says it’s soul-crushing but at least it’s in the ballpark of what she trained to do. Last month she called me, half-drunk, furious because the marketing team had demanded major character changes in her latest draft. They’d changed a main character from a high school teacher to a nurse because their market research showed nurses “tested better” with the target demographic. Then they insisted on changing the antagonist’s motivation entirely because their focus groups found the original too “morally complex.” “They don’t want stories anymore,” she told me. “They want products engineered for maximum consumption. I’m not a writer; I’m a content factory.” She’s thinking about quitting, going back to adjunct teaching. Less money but at least she’d be helping other writers find their voices instead of having hers systematically erased.

When I moved to Chicago after high school, I thought I’d found paradise. Art everywhere. Music seven nights a week. People who “got it.” The energy of the city felt electric those first few months – galleries in converted warehouses, literary readings in basement bars, street art that changed weekly. But paradise had a price I wasn’t prepared for. My apartment in Humboldt Park came with metal gates on the windows and the constant wail of sirens. Gunshots weren’t uncommon. My neighbor’s place got broken into twice in three months. The train station where I caught my ride to the coffee shop job reeked of urine and worse, and I learned to keep my head down when walking home late. The artistic community I’d romanticized was as cutthroat and transactional as any corporate environment. People networked instead of connected. Everyone was hustling, positioning, name-dropping. The literary events I attended felt like exercises in social climbing rather than celebrations of writing. And beneath it all ran an undercurrent of substance abuse that was impossible to ignore – cocaine to keep the energy up, pills to bring it down, alcohol to numb the cycle. Two years later I was back in Utah with a duffel bag and an extra ten pounds of depression weight, my manuscript still unfinished, my spirit hollowed out. Turns out it wasn’t paradise. Just a bigger, meaner machine. The quiet of Utah felt like detox. Waking up to mountain views instead of concrete. Being able to leave my doors unlocked. Walking trails where people nodded hello instead of avoiding eye contact. The conservative reputation that had once made me feel trapped now provided a strange comfort – a sense of stability and community values that Chicago’s progressive facade had promised but failed to deliver. Here I could just be me. Write what mattered without performing for the right crowds. Live simply without the constant pressure to project success. Utah might not have Chicago’s cultural cache, but it has something more valuable – space to breathe, to create without the noise, to build genuine connections instead of strategic ones. Sometimes limitation is liberation.

There’s this independent bookstore in Provo run by this lady Diane who used to work for a major publishing house before burning out. She hosts local author readings on Thursday nights. Doesn’t charge for space or take a cut of book sales. “The regular customers keep the lights on,” she says. I read there two months after moving back. Just me and a folder of poems I’d been working on since high school. Shared the stories behind each piece. Sold sixteen chapbooks for $8 each. People actually listened – no phones, no talking. Diane made everyone turn off ringers before I started. Felt more real than any of the Chicago literary events I’d attended with fifty people networking instead of listening.

My little sister’s showing interest in music now. She’s got mom’s voice, thank god, not dad’s. She asked me last week if she should post covers on TikTok “to build a following.” I didn’t know what to say. Part of me wanted to warn her about algorithms and data mining and how the platform doesn’t care about her, just what she represents as a monetizable demographic. Instead I asked if she liked singing for herself or for other people. “Both,” she said. “Then do both,” I told her. “But don’t confuse likes with actual connection. And don’t let anyone own what you make.”

I’ve been reading about these jazz musicians in the 70s who got fed up with labels. Started their own thing. Pressed their own vinyl. Booked their own shows. Built something that worked for them instead of working for something built by someone else. Dad laughed when I brought it up. “Nothing new under the sun, kiddo,” he said. “Everyone figures this out eventually. Problem is, by then they’ve usually signed away everything that matters.”

Last month I helped my friend Ellie set up a subscription thing where she sends handwritten poems to people who pay $5 a month. She’s got 74 subscribers now. Almost $400 monthly for something that brings her joy anyway. No platform takes a cut except the payment processor. No one tells her what to write or when. She knows the names of every single person who receives her work. “It’s small,” she says whenever I bring it up. Like she’s embarrassed. But is it? Seems pretty fucking huge to me.

I don’t have answers. Just observations. I know the system’s rigged. I know most platforms see artists as content factories, not people. I know bigger isn’t always better, and exposure doesn’t pay rent. I know I’m happier playing to 30 people who care than 300 who don’t. I know my dad doesn’t regret not signing that deal, even though he still writes songs nobody hears except mom and me. I know there’s power in walking away from things that diminish you, even when everyone says you’re crazy for doing it. I know Utah gets a bad rap for being culturally backwards, but I’ve found more artistic freedom in this conservative state than I ever did in supposedly progressive Chicago. Maybe because people here don’t pretend to be something they’re not. Maybe because when you’re outside the system, you build your own. Or maybe I’m just stubborn like my dad.

There’s this quote from some famous writer – I can’t remember who and I’m too lazy to Google it – about how the most revolutionary act is to tell the truth in a world full of lies. Sometimes I think the most revolutionary act for artists now is to create on your own terms in a world that wants to own your output. Grandpa’s old brushes sit in a mason jar on my desk. Mom gave them to me after he passed. The bristles are stiff with dried paint in places, but they’re made of better stuff than anything I could find at the art supply store downtown. Kind of like the art I’m trying to make. — Written between clients at a local studio where I rent space, on the back of appointment cards and a receipt for new canvas

Building a Locality Social Cloud

Six months after moving back to Utah, I had a revelation. We’ve been conditioned to believe that visibility equals success—that reaching more eyeballs is better than reaching the right ones. This thinking has trapped so many artists on the hamster wheel of platform algorithms, desperately gaming systems designed to extract value from their creativity. What if we flipped the script entirely? A friend of mine introduced me to what I call a “locality social cloud”—a network of creators bound by geography first, digital connection second. It started with an online chat we had about the concept. We’ve never met but we share a common thread, a dream. No one has met face to face yet, but we are finding others with similar interests. It’s only the beginning, but we believe it can go far. We’ve connected with a handful of other writers and a photographer so far—all virtually, but with genuine conversations. Our simple text chain is just beginning, but we envision it evolving into a community calendar, resource exchange, and eventually a loose cooperative. We’re discussing three basic principles that could guide this community:

• Share your audience intentionally with others in the cloud
• Show up physically for events whenever possible (once we reach that stage)
• Create connections that platforms can’t monetize or control We see the potential for powerful results. A poet could publish a new collection and instead of just blasting it into the internet void, have real people personally committed to sharing it with their networks. A photographer needing specific subjects could have access to willing participants. A small publisher trying a limited edition art book could secure pre-orders from cloud members. This works because it creates genuine social capital instead of algorithmic visibility. It values depth over breadth, recognizing that 100 people truly engaging with your work matter more than 10,000 scrolling past it. We anticipate an unexpected psychological benefit too. Making art can sometimes feel isolating, despite Utah having one of the largest creative infrastructures of most states. It’s only limited by its smaller population. Our cloud could provide not just practical support but an emotional safety net. We would celebrate wins together, not just with heart emojis. We’ve made this work through: Monthly gatherings rotating between members’ homes or studios
• A shared calendar for public events and private cloud-only sessions
• Skill-sharing workshops (I learned photography from someone who learned editing from me)
• A small fund for members’ emergency expenses Collaborative projects combining different mediums Our locality social cloud isn’t rejecting digital tools—we use them constantly. It’s rejecting platform dependency. We exist across platforms but aren’t owned by any of them. By grounding our connections in physical reality first, we’ve created something algorithms can’t easily commodify.

This story was written by Alyss. If you like her work, consider following her on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/alyssnancyonymous.