OK, the event was interesting! One talk, by Rosa Weinberg, was about the importance of incubation periods when working on art, and the other, by Nick Chelyapov, was on how he came to make an accessible hardware musical instrument (or toy; there was some discussion about that continuum).
An incidental thing that was good to hear in both talks was a discussion of time constraints. The first speaker mentioned feeling pressure because she was having trouble coming up with something during a few short days she had during the year to work on her own art. The second mentioned that he was squeezing in work on the device around kid stuff and client work. I always feel like I never have enough time for anything; it's reassuring to know that other artists — even those that teach art — deal with that class of problems.
Another mark for the "humanizing artists" column: I met someone that lives in my comfortable (but uncool) neighborhood! Also a dad that works at a software company that hacks on stuff when he can.
In the "intimidating column" (feel free to superimpose these on a Da Share Z0ne template in your imagination):
- They all seem really networky.
- Most of them seem to know how to promote.
- They all seem to have done exhibits and residencies.
But you know, "seem" is the key word there, and even if that word was gone, there is no actual reason to be afraid of that.