Artists: Visibility Doesn't Have to Look Like a Reel

What "being seen" actually means when your nervous system disagrees with Instagram

The other day I made the mistake of logging into Instagram on desktop. There’s no way to filter down to the accounts you actually follow, so I got the full deluge: “follow suggestions” wall to wall, mostly reels of artists and illustrators explaining how they made ££££ and became their own boss.

In my sensitive state, my first thought wasn’t “how wonderful, look at all these people doing their thing and getting paid for it. If they can do it, I can too”. It was: “should I be doing all these reels and videos? It looks way too stressful and exposing. I’m not good enough.” Note to self: there’s still a loooong way to go on the “being visible” front.

Then I noticed a carousel from an illustrator I admire, who describes herself as shy, quiet, and too sensitive. Hard for me to believe, when she makes videos and reels regularly. Her advice, more or less, was that you have to get comfortable with visibility by just showing up and that if the process feels scary, you won’t stick with it, so finding a way to do it that doesn’t feel awful matters more than the doing itself.

Fair enough. But no advice on ‘how’.

The problem with borrowing someone else’s confidence

That carousel made me notice two things.

First: it’s easy to judge how “together” someone has it based on what we see of them online. This particular artist calls herself shy and introverted (and she’s the best judge of her own character), yet she’s posting regularly, on camera, which reads to me as extremely confident and extroverted. She’s clearly found a way to make social media work for her - maybe by forcing herself to show up regardless of how she feels about it. But what if I don’t want to force myself?

Second, and more useful: what is my version of being comfortable with visibility? Right now, I think it’s telling my story through the animals of Lantern Wood. There’s a metaphorical distance there, and it’s the only way in I’ve found so far.

My actual relationship with Instagram

I’ve written before about my love/hate - mostly hate - relationship with the app. It’s not that I dislike posting my work or interacting occasionally. It’s that my pre-Millennial brain isn’t built to cope with endless reels, carousels, and ads. Does anyone else log onto Instagram, or even the Substack feed, and feel a jolt of “I’m not doing enough”? Like my squirrel character Merrin, my brain short-circuits and I land on “inadequate.”

Instagram overload!

I don’t think regular reels -with my actual face in them - are what visibility means for me. For now, it looks like a website, a few honest photos, long-form writing, and illustration. There will be no YouTube channel as far as I can see. Today I listened back to a recording of a work meeting and cringed at how different my voice sounds out loud versus in my head. That tells you most of what you need to know about my appetite for video.

Going back to basics on what “visibility” even means

I needed to strip the word back to its actual definition, so I asked Google for a plain one:

“As an artist, visibility means how easily your artwork, profile, and message are discovered by the public, galleries, and collectors. It bridges the gap between creating art and building an audience.”

It breaks down into two parts - online presence and creative identity. Here’s where I actually stand on each, honestly:

Online presence
- Social media: using platforms to share your creative process. I’m doing this. I just don’t have my face plastered across it.
- Art portfolio: a clean website showing your best work. Getting there.
- Search discovery: using keywords so people can find you online. Also a work in progress, but not beyond reach.

Creative identity
- Signature style: having a look people immediately recognise. Getting clearer every month.
- Artist statement: a clear story about your inspiration. It’s here
- Press coverage: features in art blogs or magazines. Ha ha, not yet. Maybe one day, once I’ve had some voice coaching and the therapy’s paid off!

Reassuringly, none of that definition mentions “make a lot of videos” which is the message Instagram sends me every single time I open it.

Separating trauma from preference

I know I’ve still got work to do on my mindset here. But I also think there’s something real underneath it: not blindly following generic advice, trusting myself, and trying to tell the difference between trauma and genuine energetic preference. Those two things can look identical from the outside and feel completely different from the inside - and most marketing advice doesn’t leave room for the distinction.

Visibility, for an artist carrying some of that trauma, happens in small steps that rarely feel like enough when you’re being bombarded by everyone else’s highlight reel. That’s what I’m working through here: how to get my nervous system to settle, and how to keep choosing myself anyway.

It’s easy to believe the story Meta wants you to believe: that if you’re not constantly feeding the algorithm, you’ll end up penniless and eating beans on toast for the rest of your life. I don’t want to fall for that. But I also don’t want to sell myself short by disappearing entirely.

Hester and Merrin will always have their say!

For now, I’m letting my perspective be heard in the small ways I can manage. It might come from behind Tiggle, Merrin, Hester, and Bramble - plus Mole and Snail, still waiting on their names -rather than from my own face on a reel. But right now, that’s visibility enough for me.

What does your version of “visibility” look like? And are you quietly afraid it’s not the “right” way to do it?