The Exhibit Model

A reusable framework for sharing creative work in public—distinct from portfolios and blogs.

What is an Exhibit?

A living archive organized by theme, not time. Work made visible for coherence, not metrics. Fragments welcome alongside finished pieces.

The exhibit is a container for creative energy that wanders. It provides stability without demanding consistency.

What It's Not

Not a portfolio. Portfolios optimize for clients and employers. They demand polish, best foot forward, strategic presentation. An exhibit welcomes the unfinished, the experimental, the failed attempt that taught you something.

Not a blog. Blogs run on publishing schedules and recency. They create pressure to produce content. An exhibit has no cadence—add when you have something, let it sit when you don't.

Not a teaching platform. Teaching requires packaging knowledge for others. An exhibit shares without that obligation. You're showing your work, not explaining it.

Core Principles

Authenticity over polish. Raw work has value. The sketch that led to the painting. The demo that never became a song. The idea half-formed. These aren't lesser—they're honest.

Process over product. The journey matters. Showing how you got somewhere reveals more than the destination alone.

Body of work over individual projects. The whole is the point. One song means little; a catalog reveals a voice. One essay is forgettable; a collection shows how you think.

Connection over isolation. Ideas exist in relation. Let work touch other work. Let themes repeat. Let obsessions show.

Anatomy of an Exhibit

Artifacts — individual works in any medium at any completion state. A finished album. A prototype. A diagram. A question.

Threads — thematic connections across artifacts. Not folders or categories, but recurring ideas that link disparate work.

Charter — the organizing theme and values. What questions keep drawing you back? What matters enough to build an archive around?

The Focusing Function

Interest-based nervous systems hop from idea to idea. Traditional productivity frameworks fight this tendency. The exhibit works with it.

The theme is the anchor; the work can change daily. You can spend a week on music, then a month on code, then an afternoon on writing—and if they share a thread, they accumulate in the same body of work.

Progress compounds even when attention shifts. The scattered energy that feels unproductive becomes visible output. The archive grows whether you're focused or scattered.

This is the focusing function: not forcing attention to stay still, but giving wandering attention a place to land.

Creating Your Own

Choose a unifying theme. What questions keep you returning? What problems won't leave you alone? The theme doesn't need to be clever—it needs to be true.

Gather existing work. You likely have more than you think. Old projects. Abandoned experiments. Things you made and forgot. Pull them into the light.

Let threads emerge. Don't force categories. Notice what connects. The threads reveal themselves if you let them.

Keep the charter honest. Say what you actually care about, not what sounds impressive. The exhibit only works if it's real.