I joke almost every Friday about being Maria’s part-time Marketing Director.

It is a joke between us.

Maria doesn’t have or need a Marketing Director, and it certainly would not be me; she is an artist who sells just about everything she makes by showing it to people, not marketing it to people. Marketing is how corporations do it.

She has wonderful instincts about her art – what to make and how and well to put it up for sale on her blog or Etsy page. They rarely fail her.

She isn’t really into marketing and growth and more growth. Marketing would give her hives.

Once a week, I am invited to come into her studio and help her make a video of something new she is doing. I put it up on my blog, and numerous people thank me for telling them what she is up to.

She never asks me what to create, how to create it, how to sell it, or what to charge for it.

I just love to toot her horn.

I’m a fan, not a marketer.

But whether I mention it or not, Maria does what she wants, not what people request. She has artistic pride and ego – she creates her art, and people can buy it. Or not. There is nothing arrogant or cocky about it, that is the ethos of sound artists and writers, and it is my standard.

We have both experienced the creative dangers of letting other people tell us what to do. Our life is an escape from the corporate way of looking at the world; that is neither secure nor creative. Getting bigger and bigger would be the death of both of us.

Once or twice a week, people ask me for a photo of a particular animal – a donkey or sheep, or cat. I don’t take pictures or stories on order; they have to come naturally, via my life or my day.

And I no longer even sell my photos at all; they are accessible to anyone to use in any way they wish. They are my thanks to people for supporting my work.

I earn my income from donations and Social Security. I am one of those fixed-income people now; the donations pay for the blog and the cameras, and the photos.

Maria and I dislike being told what to do, even in the nicest and best-intentioned of ways. We very much guard our own choices and decisions. Instagram is great, but if going on Instagram worked for everyone, everyone would be rich. Most artists are not, no matter where they post their work.

I am a passionate believer in focus. My blog works because I had a clear vision for it. I’ve stuck with it for 15 years, and I work at it almost daily. People know where to find me in this fragmented and disconnected world. I am where I ought to be. I think the same is true of Maria.

When I wrote about the scarves that Maria is making and selling like crazy – she has a score of orders for scarves she hasn’t even made –  I got this very well-meaning post from a blog reader:

“As her Director of Marketing, you should consider submitting Maria’s work to Taproot magazine and What Women Create magazine. Both are advertising-free and feature grassroots folks with kind souls (and talent). She would fit right in..”

This was a lovely message; it was sent with the best intentions. It sounds like she would fit right in.

But I couldn’t help but think that this is one of the things that makes me uneasy about American society – enough is never enough. We can never be satisfied with success; we have always gotten bigger and richer. We always need more than we have.

But my experience has worked in the reverse, the less I have, the happier and better I am. I have everything I need and seek nothing that I don’t have. That is the closest to a spiritual revelation I have come so far.

This goes to the heart of the corporate ethos, which has corrupted and destroyed the most creative elements of American society. Corporations have taken over our media and culture – CEOs who are overpaid consistently because they must make more every single year and when they don’t – most of them can’t – they lose their jobs. It’s all about the bottom line.

They need that big paycheck to survive. True creativity doesn’t work that way.

In a way, Maria is an excellent example of this because most of the time, she sells everything she makes and sets a low but fixed price that is not negotiable. People have two choices – buy it or not.

People often write to her saying they want something she made but wish to choose to color or stipulate the parts of a quilt. Her answer is always a polite but unyielding no.

Why should she be dissatisfied with a history of making what she loves and selling it for the price she chooses? Why must she need more? That is an American corporate idea, not a human or creative idea.

Isn’t making what you love and selling good enough?

A Website designer messaged me to ask if I wanted to hire him to help me become an Influencer on Twitter, TikTok or Instagram. No thanks, I said; I am an Influence on the Bedlam Farm Journal; I’ve never been happier or felt more at home.

We both have agreed to live in the now, to be happy with what we have. It is a rare week that someone doesn’t e-mail me telling me (which is sweet) that something I wrote should be published in the New York Times. That’s flattering but off-key for me.

I always think the same thing: I’ve written for the New York Times, and my first job was with the New York Times. I’ve read the paper for most of my life.

I am not their kind of writer, and they are not my kind of publisher. I turned to a blog to write what I wanted, not what some editor wanted me to write. I cherish my voice and fight for it often.

I have no need or wish to be published in the New York Times any more than Maria has a need or wish to have her work on every hot new website or women’s art magazine.

We create what we wish and bow to no one else.

We have no ambition to be bigger than we are, only to be creative, content, and secure. We know we will never be rich or have a lot of money in the bank.  But so far, we pay our bills and get buy.

Neither will we churn our insides by needing to be bigger and more successful all the time. I’ve never paid a dollar to advertise my blog; I have more than 8,000 unique visits a day and hundreds of thousands a year. It’s enough.

Several snarky geeks messaged me this week telling me that blogs are over. Mine hasn’t gotten the e-mail. it is doing just fine. So is Maria’s.

Maria and I live in the now, the spiritual way.

This way is working for both of us. If one day it should stop working well for us, we will change and do something else. One thing I won’t do (I don’t speak for her) is market myself on Instagram,  TikTok, or the New York Times, so I can be bigger and better.  For most of us, that is a fantasy and a myth.

My blog is the natural fit for me and for Maria as well; I love and am grateful for where I am.