8 Questions for... SLART
Cream of the Crop
(Steven Light) is a figurative expressionist artist who works and lives in Swindon, UK. At the age of eight, he discovered that he had been adopted by his grandparents, which set him on a journey of introspection and connection with his biological father and siblings. He has loved drawing since early childhood, spending many hours alone, drawing images from cartoons and animal books. He remains drawn to creating human-centric art, fascinated by the diversity of people, their stories, problems, issues, baggage, quirks, and personalities.
If you’re on the dreaded social media https://instgram.com/slart.me (I don’t check it too often).
1. Why Substack?
Thanks once again to
, not only did his blog post inspire me to get back into art after 20 years, he also brought the Substack platform into my awareness. It took me a couple of years to sign up but I’m happy to say at time of writing, 15 months later, I’ve written 136 posts. Not bad for someone who failed English at high school!I have a web background, so I technically know how to set up and run a blog, but Substack gave me something simple to use, that also could be, dare I say, “Monetised” simply, too. I’ve had one paid Subscriber for a while, now, you know who you are. Thank you, it truly means a lot!
I love the community aspect, it feels like the earlier days of the internet around 2000, people weren’t always online back then, when they were, it was generally more respectful and less conceited.
2. How long did it take you to find your groove?
Good question. I’d say the first three months were probably the toughest, because the schedule that I set (twice per week) was hard to stick to. I felt anxiety and tension around sticking to it at first, but soon after that point, it just felt like something I just do each week, it wasn’t a chore at all. It became much more enjoyable.
3. How has it changed you?
It’s made me believe in myself. I was unsure at first, but after writing a lot, you have the evidence that you can look back on and say, “I wrote that!” and that is something you can mentally fall back on. As opposed to procrastinating out of fear and producing nothing, you won’t see what you’re made of! You have no evidence of what you’re made of if you don’t try!
4. What mistakes have you made?
It’s hard to really know as I’ve not got much feedback from my writing. I’d say that because I’ve not written for my subscribers, my subscriber numbers haven’t grown much. I’ve written for me, as a way to express myself. At time of writing I’ve got 249 subscribers. A handful of people comment, hardly anyone restacks my posts. The whole thing could be seen as a failure in terms of numbers. I had high hopes when I first started, I’ll say more about this in the next question as it’s linked…
5. To pay or not to pay?
I’ve struggled in terms of what to offer my readers as a premium. I tried enticing people by offering a signed art print included in the price, with also extra features such as full post archive and paid only posts, but it didn’t really have an impact. I did some posts with my own audio commentary around the post as a paid extra too, I enjoyed doing that.
So, about 2 months ago I made the decision to keep it really simple. Now, all of my posts are open and free for the first 3 days, then they go into a paid archive, so if you like my work, you can pay to get access to the archive and also special events like exhibitions and other cool stuff. For founding members you get all of that plus an original, physical, signed drawing from me, which will be worth £1000s if not millions in the future.
6. What artistic and technical choices have you made?
I’ve tried video and podcasting but nothing consistently as yet. I had a lot of interviews that I did in the past with awesome people like introvert’s queen,
and many others. These interviews were under different guises, so it was nice to have a platform where I could just share myself and the things I had created in the past.I’d like to do more image heavy posts and I’m toying with the idea of launching a documentary via Substack.
7. What’s been the effect on your writing?
I’ve written (at least) twice weekly since the end of July 2023, on one hand, that’s a huge achievement for me. As someone who felt dumb at school, I guess it is, but I just keep on writing, more for myself than anyone else.
So I publish on Wednesdays and Saturdays: Wednesdays I share a story or two, talk about an artwork I’ve done, or just simply express myself with a semblance of poetry. On Saturdays I share my art practice and what I’ve done in my art career, or more specifically, what steps I’ve taken to get out of the rat race and pursue my art career full-time.
8. In it for the long haul?
For now, yes. I’m enjoying myself and writing is part of my routine process of reflection. I had the thought yesterday that I don’t have to carry it on if I don’t want to, which gave me a weird sense of freedom. The context around that is when I am painting full-time, I anticipate getting so lost in that endeavour, that I won’t write as much. But we’ll see. I’d still like to share my work here. Watch this space.
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"It’s made me believe in myself. I was unsure at first, but after writing a lot, you have the evidence that you can look back on and say, “I wrote that!” and that is something you can mentally fall back on." This feels true to me. For those of us new to writing, building up a track record of some kind is important and this platform helps a lot in that respect.