I know how few of you will read this. But this letter is not to the administrators, it's written to the people that flow through this website day in and day out. I need to tell you something.

A year ago, I basically left dA so that I could expand the soundlessw name elsewhere, for a number of reasons. One of them -was- that my subscription had ended and being a non-subscriber meant my experience of being here was slowed down ten-fold, but there's another reason.

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I was raised as an artist by my parents. If I woke up early, my mom had a table set up down the hall with crayons and markers and I could draw my dreams on a clean piece of white paper. We would go to art galleries often, and usher for theatre shows so we could get free tickets. As I grew I really began to embrace this spirit of being an artist, and feeling the need to explore my abilities with the tools I knew how to use, which I found to be the pen (writing). I never thought it was easy, but nobody ever told me it was supposed to be.

I eventually found myself in attendance at an Arts High School here in Minnesota, where every day of school had time where we devoted effort towards growing and experimenting as an artist. For two years I wrote every single day, and started reading my writing, and I became more experienced. At the end of those two years, I was prepared to be an artist entirely on my own; I knew how to find time to create new, unique things; and I had begun experimenting with digital photography, and video.

Not every one of you will have had the same opportunity I had, but deviantArt is supposed to be the place where you can reach out to others for help, for inspiration, and for support in creating and improving your own artistic self, the same way I did in school.

And everyone has a different artistic self, and everyone's is on a different place on the road. Some of you want to learn how to be a visual artist, and so you start by imitating others and using other's work to give you a base where you can jump off from. Some of you want to really learn how to be a photographer, and so you look to others to see what techniques are being used. And some of you are writers looking for inspiration, or a new way to look at something.

All of this is wonderful! And I encourage you to use this resource for that purpose. But alas, for most of you, the objective is much different.

For many, this is a place to find pretty pictures of things, but if that is your goal, I have little to say to you.

For another group, this is a place to be closed to new ideas, to express your experience through a narrow lens, and to have such a singular focus that when all is said and done you end up with the continually perpetuating belief that something is wrong, that other people don't care, or don't understand, or worse.

And for another equally troubling group, this is a place to garner approval and popularity for some obscure, undefined purpose that likely consists of nothing really but the swelling of the ego.

About a year ago, I started a contest for the Minnesotans group that I founded and organized. The time-line for submissions was over three months, I wanted to give people ample time to go out into the world and create! Afterall, that is the purpose of deviantArt, to CREATE. But within 6 hours of declaring the contest started, I was receiving submissions to the contest. Incredulous, I looked closely at the deviations that were submitted and found that they had all been uploaded weeks if not months before the contest was even declared.

I wasn't angry, but I was upset, and I knew that this instance spoke for the majority of the culture here on deviantArt.

So to all of you, I want to make a humble suggestion:

Just let it go. Be open to letting go of the part of you that cares more about favorites or positive feedback than the inner feeling of excitement and joy from creating something that you hadn't been able to before. Be open to the part of you that is confused and scared by the rest of the world, the part of you that's vulnerable and afraid, and share it with the world. That's the real artist in you, and that's where great art comes from. Be open to experimenting with new ideas and mediums and modes, that's how an artist grows.

And secondly, there's this: Art isn't easy. That's why you don't see point and shoot photos on dA's list of all-time most popular artworks, or short love-poems. If you want to be an artist, be prepared to do hard-work, and to be upset with yourself when it isn't just right. Be prepared to put in the energy and focus it takes to make the creation you are dreaming of. Yes, there is such thing as expression, but "artistic expression" is an articulate demonstration of the artistic self, something that takes time to develop and create.

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So, I am interested in creating something new, in learning new forms of expression, and in growing as an artist, and dA has become a place where I feel like I am confined and kept from doing such. And so I have decided to move myself away from deviantArt.

I cannot officially leave, like, close my account. This is just a notice to any and all of you, of my intentions.

I do not know if deviantArt was -ever- a place where I was supported in the way I have described above. But I hope one day it can be, and will be.

Feel free to look through my gallery, my favorites, my previous journals, etc. Feel free to send me comments, messages too, and when I check in, I'll do my best to respond.

You will, from now on, be able to find me at:

soundlessw.com

So long everybody,

-Preston