Studio Diary - April 2025
We’re talking about masking/unmasking in this month’s Studio Diary, and how creating an alter-ego has helped me to be bolder - in both my art and my business.
If you prefer to read, the transcript is below.
April Studio Diary
Welcome to April's Studio Diary. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Eli Trier. I'm a professional artist living and working in Copenhagen, Denmark. On this channel, I bring you behind the scenes of my life as an artist and all of the stuff—arty and businessy—that goes into that.
I have been absolutely bubbling with inspiration this month, so let's jump right in.
Practice as Process
Last month's theme was practice, and it has been a really interesting one. I've definitely been more tapped into my practice, which has meant that I've made more work and moved forward on various different art projects. But I've also been thinking about my practice as a whole, including what I share in my content, how I share my process, and what sort of behind-the-scenes stuff I'm sharing with you.
I'm moving forward on a few different projects at the moment, but there's not a lot of what I'm working on currently that I can or even want to share for one reason or another.
The Process Problem
I'm really not a process-focused artist. I'm very much led by ideas and by concepts, and how I make my work is often the least interesting thing about it. But I've fallen into this trap of sharing parts of my process because that's what you do when you're an artist on the internet. And I've been rewarded for that with likes and comments and validation. You've all said lovely things about it, and because of that, I've made more of that kind of content.
But I feel like it's pulling me off course from what I really want to be doing.
I often struggle with sharing my process online for a number of reasons:
Sometimes things aren't cooked yet
Sometimes just the act of sharing something I'm working on will make me not want to pick it up again (which is very frustrating)
Other people might be involved—it might be a collaboration where somebody else doesn't want me to share things
It feels really personal and private
Sometimes sharing the behind-the-scenes of me making something is a bit like sharing pictures of me on the toilet. That's how personal it feels.
I get really self-conscious when I'm being watched, even when it's just a video and I know I can delete it or don't have to share it. Often the stuff I produce while I'm being watched is not, by any stretch of the imagination, my best work. I really need solitude and privacy and just to be with my own thoughts and in my own brain.
I do push through to share some stuff with you most of the time, but I'm really excited to explore some other ways of doing things. I think I've finally come to terms with the fact that this is not my happy place. I'm not enjoying it as much as I would like to. So I'm looking at other ways of doing things, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that unfolds.
Capturing Zuzu
Which leads me very nicely into what's been inspiring me this month.
My brilliant husband Lars—some of you may have seen him on the channel before when he interviewed me—took some time out from very important video game playing and relaxing to do a photoshoot with me over the Easter holiday. And it was absolutely fabulous.
I've been talking over on my Substack about alter egos and artists' alter egos, and Zuzu, who is my alter ego and who this channel is named for. While what we were doing was ostensibly a brand shoot for video thumbnails, blog posts, social media, my website—all the images you need when you run a business on the internet—what we were really hoping to capture was Zuzu, the essence of Zuzu in all her glamour punk glory.
And oh my God, we totally nailed it.
Seeing her in the flesh for the first time—she's lived as an idea in my head for years and years, and this is the first time I've been able to take her outside of my brain.
The Impact of Unmasking
It's had a huge impact on how I see my art, how I see my content, how I see my business. Everything. It all ties together.
I'm autistic and I also have ADHD. I've spent the last 40-odd years masking and sanitising myself and hiding the weirder, more potentially offensive, less palatable parts of myself in order to be safe. When you are autistic, the world is unsafe a lot of the time, and doing anything that might be construed as confrontational or contentious is unacceptable.
A lot of autistic people find that masking is just a way that they can get through life without rocking the boat too much. But when that has been a part of your life for as long as I can remember, it means that it's really hard to stop that process. It's so ingrained. It's so automatic to just chop out the parts of my personality that might upset some people.
I don't want to upset anybody, I don't want to offend anybody, but then I'm also not being completely true to myself. I'm not standing for anything. And with art, with business, with marketing, you need to really stand for something. You need to be able to say, "This is me, and this is the people that I am for, and these are the people conversely who I am definitely not for."
What I've found is that I've been more bland and universally palatable than I really want to be.
Unmasking that and letting some of the crazy hang out a little bit more has definitely been a process, and Zuzu has been a tool that I've used to really help me with that. It's happening incrementally—I'll be a bit bolder and I'll feel a bit safer, and I'll be a bit bolder and I'll feel a bit safer—and it's happening over time.
So really, I've been inspired lately by pretending to be someone else who is more me than I feel I'm able to be, which is mental. But we do what we can. This is just the way things work sometimes.
The Other Side of Stupid
There's so much more that I want to do and be and say with my work. But I have been holding myself back out of fear, and worrying what people might think. Ironically, those are both things that I thought I had gotten over years ago. But I think doing something like art, where it is so vulnerable and it feels like I'm putting my truest, most vulnerable self out into the world, it's very difficult to do that without the layers of masking protection.
Which does the art a disservice, it does my content a disservice, it does the business a disservice. It's just not how I want to show up.
There's a great RuPaul quote that has been stuck in my head all month, running round and round: "Your fear of looking stupid is holding you back."
And oh my God, it's so true.
This photoshoot proved to me without a doubt—I was with my husband, so I could act like a total twat, a complete idiot. I could really push myself to be as bold and awkward and stupid and all of the things that I would shy away from normally. I could do that with complete impunity. It was a completely safe space. He knows what an idiot I am, so there's no hiding in a relationship like that.
Yes, some of the shots we got were super awkward and felt really contrived. But once I'd relaxed and once I'd warmed up, we got—really quickly—we shot through stupid and we got to absolutely awesome. It was amazing to see it all unfold.
The Takeaway
The one thing I want you to take away from this video is this: the awesome pretty much always lives on the other side of looking like a twat.
If you want to do anything awesome and anything amazing, you have to go through the sucky stage. You have to go through the bit where you look like the stupidest person in the world. That's where the magic lives. That's what we want.
No good comes from playing it safe, even if that is what your conditioning tells you is the safest thing and will keep you protected and stop bad things from happening. It's not true. Bad things are going to happen regardless. You may as well be completely authentic and true to yourself while it's happening.
You're never going to please everybody.
Moving Forward
That's been the meat of my month—having this experience where a vision has come to life and it's given me a new lens through which to look at my entire body of work and what I'm doing and how I want to shape it moving forward. Both with the art that I make and also with how I present it.
I haven't decided on a theme for next month, but I think I might continue with practice for a second month because I need a little bit of time to process everything that has been thrown up by what's happened this month.
It's been a wild ride for sure.
Stay Connected
I do want to make sure that you are signed up to my newsletter, which is where all the good stuff happens so you don't miss anything. My newsletter is the central point, and you can also find out about what's new in the shop and when art is for sale.
I'm switching up the way things are done over the next month, so I'm going to have more regular shop updates. I'm expanding my range of products, so even if you don't have a big budget, you can still get a piece of my world and collect art on a much smaller scale.
If you haven't already subscribed here, please do. And leave me a comment—I'd really love to know where your fear of looking stupid has held you back and what you're doing about it. Has this video inspired you to look like a twat and get to the awesome? I really, really hope so.
It's a game changer.
That's all for this month. I'll see you in the next video.
See more of my creative process in The Laboratory
