Stop Trying to Reach More People. Reach the Right Ones Instead.

Thinking about a thought experiment from Mauro Toselli ( @xlontrax )

Imagine you had to choose between two ways of showing your work. First option, you could have a cozy showing in a small gallery near your hometown, perhaps a dozen or more people in there at a time, to chat and talk with you about it.

Second option is…the Louvre! But not displayed right next to the Mona Lisa or anything. No, two of your sketchnotes would be displayed in a side hallway just on the way to a restroom — which, by the way, guarantees that millions of people will see your work. Which would you choose?

My first answer was a typically American one, refusing the premise. “I’d do both! Why can’t I do both?” But I calmed down, and took the experiment seriously. Which would I choose?

My gut said the small gallery, but I wanted to figure out why.

Is it about you, or about the work?

At first I thought it fits into my practice of de-centering. I’m not very good at it — I mean, I wrote this article during a livestream hoping you’d read it, which is pretty Gray-centric. But I have had just enough of a taste of micro-celebrity to recognize the emptiness of it, so most of the…