Introducing: Matters of the Art

Notes on Living the Creative Life

Brought to you by the creative team at daCunha

Are you an artist? Are you making something to keep the lights on or simply to feed your cherished dreams? Are you, like so many of us, chasing that creative life? Staring off into the great beyond, dreaming of creation, courting the muse, wringing your hands, banging your head on the desk?

We know exactly how it feels. Though we spend so much of our time reading, editing, designing, and discussing, we are all artists seeking the time and space and juice to create our own stuff. So we’re building a new publication called Matters of the Art. We’ve put Subtext to bed, transitioned Made Up Words to our permanent fiction home, and now we want to share insight, inspiration, and motivation with you, the artists and creators of the world. We want to talk about the art.

Devotion to a creative life can be challenging. Blocks and rejection, seeking inspiration while trying to pay the bills, worrying that it’s all for naught, wondering if the well of talent has dried up. Process, patience, persistence, presentation — whatever work of art you’re trying to bring to light, there are so many questions and qualms, so many pieces of the big puzzle of creation that we’re all juggling.

With this publication, we are hoping to explore our personal experiences with the creative life. Our victories, our injuries, our fun, and our struggles. Our workspaces and communities, tools and beverages. Whatever fuels the fires of creativity, we’re hoping to examine here.

So, join us. If you are seeking or chasing your creativity and want to connect with others who are navigating their way through a creative life, check in with our new home for everything creative.

I think it’s going to be grand fun.

Here’s a taste of what’s to come —

• Veronica Montes will gift us with “The Proper Care and Feeding of Artists.”
• Tom Farr will weigh in with “Tools for the Creative Life.”
• Grey Drane 🌀 will examine the challenge of finding time for creativity in the midst of the commitments of daily life.
• Oliver Shiny will tell us about “The Necessity of Adventure and What Charles Baudelaire Has to Say about It.”
• alto will explore “Introspection and Some Distance.”
• Lisa Renee will write about her lack of workspace, her strange meandering approach to writing, and her suspicion that settling down might be the golden ticket.

Meanwhile, if you have fiction, non-fiction, audio, or other art that you’re ready to send out into the world, we’d love to see it at daCunha. We’re open for submissions from November 1st — November 10th. Visit our Submittable page and get started!

~ Lisa Renee