Fifty-four: Using My Powers For Good

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

I know three things about myself at this age. Well actually, a helluva lot more than three. But for today’s purposes I’m focusing on three which have played out most prominently since my last birthday post.

I’m tenacious. I have a rebellious streak. And I’m a do-gooder.

My personal trifecta

What some folks call stubbornness, I call tenacity. And I’ve got loads of it. But my tenacity has been tested to great lengths in the past few years. Thoughts of “life is too short for this shit” have certainly crept in as the birthday number has crept up. But after a while, tenacity takes over again for the things I truly care about. I am learning to identify and let go of the flotsam that really doesn’t matter.

As for that rebellious streak, it’s not rebellion simply for the sake of it. Or breaking “rules” just to be an jerk. But I will question why we do the things we do and break with tradition or conformity if there’s no damn good reason for it. “That’s how we’ve always done it” or similar copouts do not work for me.

My rebellious streak is often fueled by my do-gooder nature. What can I say? I believe in cooperation and community. I believe in making a difference. I believe we’re all in this together.

What I don’t believe in is keeping my head down and not making waves when waves absolutely need making.

The problem

Where that do-gooder nature becomes my Achilles heel is when I’m volunteering too much. Or giving away my time for less than it’s worth to help someone out. Which is unfortunately too often and to my detriment.

I’m trying to set healthier boundaries. It’s a work in progress. The expense of not doing so has been extremely high over the last few years. It’s cost me a tremendous amount in terms of my health and maintaining my own life and business.

I’ve spent much of this year in damage control mode as I’ve worked to course correct. The path is not linear by any stretch of the imagination but the trajectory is upward, if grudgingly so. But fixing things is always harder than having performed the steady maintenance that would have kept them from getting broken in the first place.

The solution

So what’s a tenacious, rebellious, do-gooder, micro-entrepreneur to do?

It turns out, she needs to put that energy to good use in a way that allows her to make difference and still run her business. And it turns out she can meld her world of entrepreneurship with a mission-driven mindset that satisfies her do-gooder spirit and her rebellious streak. Go fig, right?

The result

So I present, Southwest Art Towns.

The short version is my dear man and I have created an online forum dedicated to art in the southwest. It’s designed to be a hub for connection, community-building, and collaboration.

How is this do-gooding? Or rebellious? Or tenacious?

Thanks for asking. I’ll tell you.

The do-gooding bit

The seed for this was planted after landing in Silver City and getting deeply involved in the art scene in the southwest. The pattern of frustrations and obstacles for artists here became apparent quickly.

The noisy, ugly online environment and greed-driven algorithms of social media are massive challenges. Throw in our big western geography and the expense of travel to participate in markets and shows and you have an equation for failure.

The solution became obvious to us: build a mission-driven online community. Over some happy hours and back-of-the-napkin brainstorming, we fleshed out a scenario for a topic-focused online community for artists to connect with other artists, patrons, and business owners that would allow them to build a virtual network focused on art in a supportive environment.

Some initial market research revealed we were on the right track so we dug deeper and realized the idea had serious legs. I gotta keep it real, though. (It’s my thing, as you know.) The thought of starting yet another web site-and an extremely complicated one at that-wasn’t initially high on my list of things I wanted to take on. Having dental surgery by a Tyrannosaurus Rex sounded more appealing.

But we realized this project needed to happen. And we were the ones who could make it a reality. So our do-gooder natures (my dear man is a do-gooder as well) won out in the end. We decided we had to put our expertise to good use to create a place for artists to form better pathways to collaboration and financial success in our creative economy.

The rebellion bit

Point blank, the current social media landscape sucks. That’s not a shocker. We all know this.

For those of us trying to run businesses in this hellscape, though, the stakes are higher than the casual user. And infinitely more frustrating.

The idea of building a new place for creators to engage in social networking for our art businesses without all the bullshit of the “big” platforms was what eventually got me past my initial reluctance.

Southwest Art Towns isn’t going to topple those 800-pound gorillas (and isn’t designed to) but it is going to provide a better place for art-loving folks to engage and for artists to build more diverse income streams.

It gives us alternatives to the bullshit and algorithms. I like alternatives. Especially ones that mean we don’t have to participate-or can participate less-in funding multi-zillionaire jerks.

The tenacity bit

And here’s the whopper of the Val trifecta-tapping into tenacity.

This is a massive project. And we’ve been piecing it together as time and money have allowed. My dear man and I have been trying to make this happen for over two years.

It’s not that we’ve been working on it 24/7/365 for over two years. But for the last two-plus years I haven’t protected myself from the aforementioned do-gooder time suck in order to maintain all of our other projects, much less get this project launched.

So I stepped down from the rather large duty of president of our local art association this year. We also largely back-burnered most of our other business outlets to free up time to get Southwest Art Towns built and live.

Even with the relief of letting other efforts go, keeping our enthusiasm and spirits up for this project has been a huge challenge. Two-plus years is a long time to keep convincing yourself you’re on the right path when it feels like you’re getting nowhere.

Let’s do this

But here we are with a live site at last and an ambitious road map ahead. The positive feedback we’re getting on Southwest Art Towns is heartening. We need more than a pat on the back, though.

Our bootstrapping efforts have maintained us so far but aren’t enough to make this a success. It’s too slow and we need to build on the momentum we’ve got right now. That momentum is highly perishable.

So this year I need your help. Now that the site is live we’re crowdfunding to get us into the next stages. Not only does your support give us the revenue to address immediate needs, it’s a signal to other funders (individuals, grant-makers, lenders, etc.) that this project is worth investing in.

For my birthday this year, let’s grass-roots the shit out this, shall we?

Here’s the crowdfunding page with more info on the project plus some swag and other rewards for participating. There’s also a video. Which I suck at but we did it anyway. Have a watch and a good laugh. Or at least be impressed I didn’t cuss even once. At least not on camera, anyway.

Thank you

Thanks in advance for your support and the reassurance of knowing you believe in this rebellious do-gooder and her tenacity.

Cheers, friends!

Originally published at https://valinreallife.com on December 5, 2025.