I have been a full-time professional artist for 14 years now. I have used social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X) and this website hosted by WordPress to show my work for quite a bit longer than that.
I have never used TikTok. I gave up on Twitter/X no long after Musk bought it. It was never particularly good for the still image. Instagram used to be very good for photographers and artists.
A couple of years ago I would regularly get over 200 hundred “likes” on a post on instagram sometimes over 500. Once or twice over a post even got over a thousand likes, but no more. Now I am lucky to get 50. I have noticed that this has happened to a lot of other artists’ accounts too. This has been sapping my confidence and damaging my creativity. “What’s the point if no one sees it. No one will buy it if they dont see it”
Round the Rosses – 362 likes in 2019
My work has not deteriotated in quality. In many ways I feel that it has much improved but you’d never think that from the metrics. I appreciate that as Instagram decided to chase the Tiktok market by introducing Reels and Stories that I have resisted that change. I am not a film maker and I dont want to be one.
Lighthouse at Fort Dunree (Donegal) 833 Likes in 2022
I appreciate the beauty of a still image and silence. I never have the sound on if I can help it.
Strangely, I am okay with “Sponsored Content” as I don’t pay to be on the site and I know they have to make their money somehow. What I do have a problem is that when I log on these days my senses are assaulted by all singing and dancing stuff I never asked to see, accounts I never signed up for. The suggested content is overwelming. The infinite feed is insane. “Discover” is rarely of interest so I dont bother with it. The algorithm has bland dull taste.
Lately, I have felt sick logging on and sicker logging off. I used to find artists I liked but now I feel exhausted and used.
Rocky Ground Bun An Inver by Emma Cownie – 92 likes in 2025
All this stuff has been deliberately designed to be addictive. A court case in California earlier this year upheld the view that Meta and YouTube design addictive products that harmed young people. I haven’t noticed the platforms becoming less addictive, if anything they seem to be getting worse.
I will go on my phone to answer comments and queries and find I have got distracted looking at videos of sick or disabled cats in countries many of miles away. It makes me feel stressed. On the days when I dont log in, I feel a lot better.
Boats at Inishbofin Pier, Donegal 1340 Likes in 2022
Last month, the European Commission found Meta in breach of the Digital Services Act for the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook. The investigation focuses on features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and the platforms’ highly personalised recommender systems. Earlier this year the EU told Tiktok to change its addictive design or face a massive fine. Sadly, the UK is no longer in the EU.
I can’t wait for Meta et al to change their addictive designs so that my head no longer feel fried after I have been on their sites for a silly amount of time. So, I have decided to turn off comments and likes on my Instagram account and the “Emma Cownie landscape Artist” Facebook account that is linked to it. I will continue with comments and likes on my other Facebook account for a while longer so I can compare results.
I hope it will save my sanity. It’s just as much work to turn off the comments and like but I feel better having wrested a modicum of control back from the Tech giants.
I am off to wrap some paintings and read a sewing book.
If you want to contact me you can still DM me on these sites or email me at emmafcownie@gmail.com
We recently went to see Helen Merrigan Colfer’s solo exhibition at the Alley Gallery, Strabane. She is a sculptor & painter. She lives & works on the tip of the Hook Head Peninsula, County Wexford, Ireland. She works with resin & steel. Her work is quite incredible and very engaging.
This exhibtion included paintings, many resin sculptures and parts of her lockdown diaries that started as a series of notes she wrote for her mother-in-law Noreen, who was living “with” (but cocooned) Helen and her husband during lockdown.
Helen Merrigan Colfer
Portrait of Noreen – Helen Merrigan Colfer
The scultpures were all about the same size, I didn’t measure them but I would say they were about 2 foot high. There was work there from 2016 and more recently. The earlier work was highly coloured but darker and heavier. This is not surprising as these pieces in Tribes and Tribulations was made while she was recovering from childhood trauma. Her counsellor encouraged her to return to her art after emotional difficulties meant she had given up.
It is evident that she is working through disturbing emotions. The eyes of all the figures of the scultpures were either hidden behind a mask/bag or closed. Shoes are a theme too – I was drawn to the large red boots and shoes that many of the the figure wore. The arms of the figures were either missing or constrained by corset/straight-jacketed affairs. There are some free arms, but those are the later works that seem lighter, paler and more at peace. The smaller the shoes the lighter the emotions.
I don’t think you needed to know the details of her dyfunctional childhood to realise that there was a lot of frustration, anger and grief in these work. They contrast quite starkly with the out-pouring of love for her mother-in-law, Noreen, in the lockdown letters. We all remember lockdown as a frustrating and frightening time when many emotions were heightened. Noreen was clearly cocooned in love, even if it was from a distance. I liked the mixture of letters, sculptures, video and paintings. I found it an invigorating mix.
This is a touring exhibition but I don’t know where it will be headed to next but its well worth seeing.
On Thursday I did something I have never done before. I did a presentation to a bunch people in London via the internet. During the darkness winter days of lock down I have sat at my computer and listened to quite a few people give presentations on subjects as diverse as Art (Jennifer Pockinski, Elizabeth O’Reilly), Irish Language (Manchán Mangan), Irish Bogs (Creative Rathangan Meithea), Irish Cottages (Ulster Architectuaral Society) and Literature (Gabriel Byrne) and thoroughly enjoyed them.
Artfinder: Mental Health Awareness Week
This Thursday, I got my chance to see behind the scenes of these sorts of events and talk about my experiences for Mental Health Awareness Week with On Thursday I did something I have never done before. I did a presentation to a bunch people in London via the internet. During the darkness winter days of lock down I have sat at my computer and listened to quite a few people give presentations on subjects as diverse as Art (Jennifer Pockinski, Elizabeth O’Reilly), Irish Language (Manchán Mangan), Irish Bogs (Creative Rathangan Meithea), Irish Cottages (Ulster Architectuaral Society) and Literature (Gabriel Byrne) and thoroughly enjoyed them.the team behind the online gallery, Artfinder (www.artfinder.com). I was also featured in a news blog on their website. During the pandemic many people are probably used using Zoom or Teams for their work meetings but I have never had this experience before. I think this is why I suggested a quick trial hook up the day the before. I had also seen things go slightly awry during those webinmars. My personal favourite was when the speaker’s laptop battery suddenly died and he had to rush off to find another laptop and the chair had to fill in for ten minutes whilst he did this!
Googlemeet and Zoom
I am so glad that we did a practice run with Jane and Kirsty. We started with Zoom. The sound on my laptop was dreadful and everything sounded like it was underwater. Jane and Kirsy sounded like a couple of unintelligable dolphins! Between my old Laptop and a ropey internet connection (Now TV, or “Not, Now TV” as we like to call it in this house), it wasn’t working. I wanted the throw the laptop across the room, cry and/or swear a lot. Obviously, I did neither.
What I wanted to do to my laptop
Eventually, Kirsty, the tech genius, came up with the idea of doing the meeting with Google Meet. “It is very low tech”, she said. “That’ll suit me just fine, I am low tech”, I said! The rest of the test worked well and we had a chat about what it was like working remotely.
On the afternoon of the presentation I waited nervously for the meeting to start and even said a prayer beforehand. Then all these youthful faces pinged onto the screen. More and more until it was full with 9 boxes and more names listed along the top of the screen of people I could not see. I am not sure if the prayer helped because I still had problems getting my screen to share my powerpoint. Thankfully Michal (the CEO) talked me through which buttons to press , in which order and we were finally in business.
Not the Artfinder Team – but my screen did look a bit like this
I then had that wierd moment before you start speaking that seemed to stretch on for ever. I looked at my screen. All I could see was my presentation, no faces now, which was odd too. I took a big breath and began.
OK – I am just going to give you the highlights.
In 2006 I started having panic attacks on the motorway – I saw a couple of (not very good) therapist/hypnotherapists and bought a lot of books on panic attacks. It did not solve my problem. I avoided motorways.
2012 Minor Car Accident – which led to me developing PTSD & Burn Out (also known as a “Breakdown”). This resulted in hypervigilance/nightmares/flashbacks/inability to concentrate/exhaustion. I found a very good therapist and had EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and during the course of this therapy started painting every day. It was a very slow recovery and it took a year to return to work part time
How art has helped me with my recovery / mental health over the years: – I find it calming, restorative, meditative and it boosts my fragile self-esteem. It also improves my concentration & energy levels. It provides a positive focus to my life, I find the colours therapeutic and painting also provides an intellectual challenge as there is a lot of problem-solving in painting. It also provides social connections through blogging & social media
As this was a presentation to Artfinder staff I talked about how important Artfinder has been in my journey into becoming a professional artist.
My husband, Séamas, joined the Artfinder site on my behalf in April 2013. He also set up a website a blog for me.
My first sale on Artfinder was in June 2013. It was a giclée print of “A Tenby Reflection” for £39
I sold my first painting via Artfinder July 2013
In the last 8 years I have sold over 800 works via Artfinder and gained over 6000 followers, which makes me the most followed artist on the site!
I left teaching in 2017 and became a full-time artist – I put a lot more time and energy into my painting, my website, blogging and social media sites
Early Work
Tenby Reflections (2013) My first sale on Artfinder
Perpetual Light (2013)
The Light Refracted
Winter Morning Light on Parkmill
A Slender Light
Gower Paintings
Evening on Three Cliffs
Coloured Sands at Three Cliffs
Ireland
Around Cloughcor (Arranmore)
From Cloughcor To Maghery (Arranmore)
Mental Health, the Covid-19 pandemic and other emergencies
PTSD – I tend to think of the worse possible outcome to most things at the best of times. I usually have to talk myself down from my initial extreme reaction, but for once in early 2020 I was RIGHT! This new virus was an end-of-the-world scenario!
I kept a diary to help cope with the sense of panic and anxiety I was experiencing and then. I took my dogs for a walk in the woods on my own (Séamas was in Ireland)
I tripped and broke my leg and had to wait 5 hours for the emergency services to rescue me. You can read that long story here.
I spent 9 days in hospital waiting for an operation to pin my leg.
During my long recovery from this experience, I reflected on the differences between how we all, myself included, treat physical and mental health issues. With physical health issues there is the physical pain (there was certainly lots of that), the practical difficulties of getting around, frustration at the loss of independence and the physical exhaustion as your body heals. I also discovered that this sort of trauma was easy to talk about. There was a lot of public sympathy & concern from people.
It was a lot easier to deal with than mental health issues. I was delighted to realise that I dealt with the trauma and pain with (mostly) good humour and fortitude – although that wore off a bit when my rehab took a whole lot longer than I was expecting. I felt mentally sound even if my body wasn’t.
In contrast, when I experienced my mental breakdown, there was a lot of isolation, shame, fear, embarrassment on my part as well as physical exhaustion. I had always been a tough, independent and reliable person and I hated that my breakdown changed that. I still struggle with accepting my limitations. It was clear that a lot of other people felt sorry for me. That was not easy to bear either.
One of the few positives of the pandemic is that people have been more open about how they have struggled with their mental health. I think that it has shown people that a lot of mental health issues are related to having to bear “unbearable” situations. My huband, Séamas, says I didn’t have a breakdown down but a break through. My life, as it was, was making me ill and it had to change. During the pandemic that unbearable situation was universal. Everyone had to deal with having our freedoms curtailed, especially the freedom to see our family and friends. Many people people discovered that the joy of doing things with your hands/body such as gardening, yoga, painting, baking saved their sanity. I know that in my darkest hour I was making scones with Séamas! Art continues to keep me sane.
I answered a number of questions from Michal and staff at Artfinder. What came up: Had I painted before the 2012 accident? What can Artfinder do to help people with Mental Health Issues? How do you help someone with mental health issues? Different therapies and medications and how they might work for person and not for another.
The presentation wasn’t recorded, and in a way I am glad about that. I don’t think I would have been so open about my experiences if I thought what I said could be picked over and examined by people who weren’t present at the time. It was a strange situation to give a talk to a group of people I couldn’t really see. When I have given talks before I have had people’s faces and body language to help gauge their reactions to what I was saying. This time I didn’t. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the whole thing afterwards because of this although the staff were all very positive. I hope that my audience got something out of the experience!
I will finish with a quote from “Anthem” by the Canadian singer and poet, Leonard Cohen.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
