Confluence: How Showing Up, Creating, and Connecting Opens Doors You Never Saw Coming

This one's for the artists. The ones making work in their bedrooms, their garages, their kitchens — the ones creating even when nobody's watching. This is about why that matters, and how the life you build around your art can become the greatest catalyst for your growth.

You Have to Keep Making

Let's get one thing straight: creating new work isn't optional. It's mandatory. Not because someone told you to, not because you're chasing a paycheck or a viral moment — but because the act of making is how you evolve.

Every piece you finish sharpens your skill. Every experiment teaches you something about yourself as an artist. Every time you sit down and make something, you're tapping into a level of creativity that wasn't accessible to you before. That's the compounding effect of consistency. It doesn't look like much day to day, but over months and years, it transforms you.

The real shift happens when you stop creating for an outcome and start creating because you're a vessel. You make because something inside you needs to be made. When you understand that and I mean truly understand it, you stop waiting for permission. You stop waiting to get noticed, paid, or validated. You just make. Because you're meant to. And that freedom? That's when your best work starts to show up.

Know why you create. Know that you are the conduit. And then let it rip.

Real Relationships Will Always Beat the Algorithm

Here's something nobody wants to say out loud but every working artist knows to be true: human connection is 1000% more powerful than anything you'll ever post on the internet.

Social media has its place. But a like, a follow, a share, none of that compares to a real conversation with a real person who sees your work and feels something. The relationships you build in person, in your city, in the rooms you choose to walk into, those are the ones that change your trajectory.

When you show up in the world as an artist, curious, open, genuinely interested in the people around you, opportunities find you. Not because you're networking in some transactional, card-swapping way, but because human beings are drawn to passion. They remember people who made them feel something. And artists, when they're being themselves, do exactly that.

Talk to people. Start conversations. Be present wherever you are. The connections you make in real life will open doors that no algorithm ever could.

The Story Behind DOOMED

Let me tell you about one of my paintings I call DOOMED, which is a portrait of legendary hip hop artist MF DOOM, and how it came to exist. Now these stories don't happen to me every day, but I have had this kind of thing happen a number of times. I think it's important to show you exactly what I mean when I talk about confluence.

At the time, I was in a groove creating things that felt very on-brand for The Flowerboyy, but I wanted to push myself outside of that groove. I made DOOMED on a whim. I had an empty 12x16 canvas with no plan for it, so I decided to paint a portrait of someone who had genuinely inspired me: MF DOOM.

There was no strategy behind it and no larger intention. I just wanted to make the painting and follow the impulse.

A new coffee shop opened around the corner from my apartment in LA, Good Intentions. I liked to walk to different coffee shops near me most mornings, depending on the vibe I was looking for before I got into studio mode. When Good Intentions opened, I went to check it out.

You could tell they were still settling in, still decorating, still figuring out the neighborhood. But the energy was right. I quickly got to know most of the baristas, and eventually I met the owner, Sarah. She told me everything about why she loves coffee, why she chose to open this place, what she was giving to it. She was passionate. You could feel it. This wasn't just a business, it was a calling.

I noticed the shop had incredible artwork on the walls and a hip hop-influenced aesthetic throughout. It felt intentional. It felt like a place that actually cared about culture.

At first, I didn't know this place or this relationship had anything to do with DOOMED. In fact, I had already made the painting before I ever knew about Good Intentions. But the connection would eventually give the work a life I never could have planned.

After becoming a regular at Good Intentions for a couple of months, my fiancé and I got news that we needed to move to Washington to help out with family. We had already been thinking about moving away from LA after nearly 13 years, and between the family circumstances and the season of life we were in, it felt like the right time.

As we planned the move, downsized our things, and packed up my studio, I got almost everything into bins. Somehow, DOOMED didn't make it in. Maybe it was hiding behind a larger painting. At 12x16 inches, it would have been easy to miss.

A few days before we moved, I got the idea to gift the painting to Good Intentions. It wasn't because I didn't value it or thought I couldn't sell it. It just didn't feel like it matched the rest of my catalog. It was an outlier, and I didn't see myself building a body of work around abstract portraits of hip hop artists I admired.

I wrapped the painting, wrote a note, and gave it to Sarah. I remember her looking caught off guard. She gave me some merch from the shop in return: some of the coolest T-shirts and coffee mugs. It seemed like she wanted it to feel like a fair trade, which was kind, but that wasn't why I gave it to her. I meant it as a gift. I just felt like that's what I wanted to do.

The last time I saw DOOMED, I handed it to Sarah wrapped up. From there, she hung it front and center for everyone to see. And somehow, that little painting became the best billboard and piece of marketing material I've ever created.

With Sarah and Good Intentions giving people my website, email, and Instagram handle, DOOMED started doing things I never expected. It sold prints, original paintings, and commissions. More importantly, it connected me with genuinely cool people and art lovers from all over the United States, many of them visitors who had simply stopped into Good Intentions for a great cup of coffee.

That painting I made with no plan became a bridge. It connected the work I was making to a community I didn't know I was about to find. I gave it away because I didn't know where it fit in my catalog. It ended up showing me that sometimes the work doesn't need to fit your plan before it can open a door.

Show Up. Create. Connect. Repeat.

The formula isn't complicated. Keep making your work. Stay curious about the people around you. Build relationships that are genuine, not strategic. And trust that when you do those things consistently, confluence happens — opportunities, collaborations, and moments that expand both your practice and your audience in ways you never could have manufactured.

The art brings you to the table. The relationships keep you there. And the work you do in between, the quiet, consistent, nobody's-watching work, is what makes everything else possible.

Keep going.