HOW ONE FORWARDED EMAIL GOT PEARL JAM’S ATTENTION

One person on your email list can make a big difference.

I found out that Pearl Jam posted about the local nonprofit community art center Alice and I started, Art House Grandview, on their Instagram.

Three point eight million followers. A photo of a kid at Art House learning guitar, small hands on the neck of an instrument almost too big for them. Their foundation, the Vitalogy Foundation, picked Art House as the April recipient of their Future Days Fund grant. The money goes directly into the programs where we teach kids music for free.

Joshua Heath Scott wrote a newsletter, ‘HOW GUITAR CHANGED MY LIFE,’ and someone on the email list forwarded it to Pearl Jam’s foundation, which led to them highlighting Art House Grandview.

Joshua wrote that piece as only he could, talking about how Pearl Jam’s ‘Ten’ album was a huge influence, and “I’ve spent a lot of time on this Substack trying to articulate why art and creativity matter — why guitar matters — why it’s more than an instrument, why it carries the weight of where music has been, why holding one connects you to something larger than yourself.”

This is the core of talking about what we do.

We don’t just play music, we change lives.

We don’t just write essays, we shape culture.

We don’t just take photos, we document the world around us.

When we reduce ourselves to commodity offerings (check out my song, buy my print, read my article), we can’t be surprised when it’s treated as “content.”

So talk about your work in the same creative manner in which you make it. Dare to say you’re a writer even if you’re not “published.” Call yourself a photographer, a musician, a poet.

If the ding-dongs running the United States right now can claim they know what they’re doing, you have my permission to be anything you wanna be.

Let’s not define ourselves by our primary source of income, as we were put on earth for reasons beyond comprehension, beyond punching someone else’s time clock to pay the rent.

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Join me and the Social Media Escape Club TOMORROW, April 23 at 2pm EST, as we talk about this (and more), and you’ll leave with some new ways to talk about your work – sign up here.