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Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want To Come

What a real community of artists looks like

David Todd McCarty
Ellemeno
Published in
7 min readJan 15, 2025

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Photo by David Todd McCarty.

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Groucho Marx famously said that he wouldn’t belong to a club that would have him. He was a comedian so it’s hard to know if that’s really how he felt or if he thought it was just a funny thing to say. I prefer to think he was self-aware enough to recognize the artistic spirit within. That bundle of nerves that combines hubristic confidence with crippling insecurity. What someone once referred to as the piece of shit around which the world revolves.

Most art involves a fairly solitary creative experience, a solo project that doesn’t see the light of day until we believe it is ready for public consumption. You have to be comfortable spending a lot of time with yourself in order to create art. For this reason, as well as a few others involving intelligence and creativity, most artists lean pretty heavily towards introversion. Not all, mind you, but most.

There are exceptions. Group projects such as orchestras, dance, theater, and filmmaking that require intense collaboration. But even with those, someone somewhere is doing a lot of sweaty work, all alone.

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Ellemeno
Ellemeno

Published in Ellemeno

A literary journal dedicated to the exploration of life, memoir, culture, travel, and writing.

David Todd McCarty
David Todd McCarty

Written by David Todd McCarty

A cranky romantic searching for hope and humor. I tell stories. Most of them are true. I’m not at all interested in your outrage, but I do feel your pain.

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